Kendal Lee Campeau spent most of his life out and in of jail. The final time he went in, he by no means got here out.
He was serving a seven-year sentence for assault, escaping lawful custody and possession of illicit substances, amongst different costs. In 2021, lower than two years from his statutory launch date, the 31-year-old died of a methadone overdose.
Campeau died at Pacific Establishment’s Regional Remedy Centre (RTC) in B.C., a specialised jail for inmates with psychological well being points. Previous to this, he had been transferred from Saskatchewan Penitentiary’s RTC to Kent Establishment in Agassiz, B.C.
“Kendal was a really wild baby, he bought into numerous bother with the legislation,” Campeau’s sister, Ashley Fontaine, just lately advised CBC Information, whereas sitting on her plant-filled deck in Garson, Man.
“All he ever mentioned about his expertise in jail is that you simply by no means wish to go there.”
Campeau had a bit of greater than a yr and a half left on his determinate sentence earlier than he could be eligible for launch. It is half of a bigger development of inmates dying with little time left to serve.
Kendal Lee Campeau’s sister Ashley Fontaine nonetheless feels the ache of shedding her brother. (Jaison Empson/CBC)
A “determinate sentence” means an offender has a set date of launch, at which level, barring extenuating circumstances, they are going to be launched on parole for the ultimate third of their time.
An indeterminate — or indefinite — sentence is awarded when the court docket finds the offender to be a “harmful offender.” This implies the inmate will nonetheless be eligible for full parole after seven years, but when it is not granted, their time in jail will proceed indefinitely.
A package deal launched to CBC in April by the Correctional Service of Canada by way of a freedom of knowledge request confirmed the main reason behind dying for inmates serving determinate sentences between January 2019 and February 2025 was suicide. Overdoses got here an in depth second.
The information mentioned 45 per cent of inmates who died by suicide on their timed sentence had already served greater than three-quarters of it; 39 per cent had served greater than half.
Nervousness over launch
Of the whole variety of non-natural deaths — which incorporates not solely suicides and overdoses however homicides and accidents — 72 per cent had been inmates serving determinate sentences.
Suicide made up 47 per cent of non-natural deaths for these serving indeterminate sentences.
In different phrases, inmates with a set launch date had been dying extra ceaselessly than those that had been inside indefinitely — and near after they had been as a consequence of get out.
4 days after CBC acquired the package deal of information from the Correctional Service of Canada, CSC despatched CBC an e-mail saying it had been despatched in error and requested, “Should you might please kindly delete the model you acquired on April 4, it could be most appreciated.” Connected to that e-mail was a second model of the package deal.
Alison Craig, a Toronto defence lawyer, thinks the jail system wants to alter its strategy to rehabilitation for these being launched. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)
Whereas the unique contained no redactions, the brand new one was nearly completely redacted. CBC has determined to share the unique findings anyway.
Toronto defence lawyer Alison Craig says launch dates can act as a catalyst for already extenuating circumstances.
“Your launch date comes, the door opens, they are saying, ‘Goodbye, good luck,’ and also you’re on the market to fend for your self with no assist, no assist, no nothing,” she advised CBC Information.
The unique CSC information confirmed that 60 per cent of inmates who dedicated suicide throughout their timed sentences had been launched and subsequently re-incarcerated in lower than three months.
“Most of the individuals which can be kind of on a course of simply biking out and in of custody are individuals who do not have houses, they’re unhoused. They do not have households. They wrestle with habit or psychological well being points,” Craig mentioned.
“They wish to be productive members of society. No person desires to spend their life going out and in of jail. However additionally they need assistance … they usually do not ever have it.”
‘You are simply breaking down’
Former inmate Richard Miller says the psychological anguish of being incarcerated is usually the place the pot boils over.
“Emotionally, it’s totally … disturbing. Your rights and your dignity is sort of stripped from you. Lots of instances, individuals’s psychological well being, you realize, performs a giant half in it,” he mentioned. “You are simply breaking down that you simply’re not price something.”
Richard Miller has seen the within of prisons first-hand, and says it may possibly break somebody mentally. (Submitted by Richard Miller)
Miller was incarcerated on and off at a number of federal services in Ontario for aggravated assault and subsequent parole violations between 2012 and 2017. He thinks he was moved round as a result of he was talking out about remedy from officers.
He mentioned numerous time individuals bottle up the issues they’re experiencing as a result of they really feel there will not be repercussions for individuals who have wronged them on the within. This creates a mindset of demoralization.
“Lots of instances guys are in there for a very long time. They simply quit. ‘What am I going out to? I haven’t got any household.’ (They) may need been right here 26 years. You recognize, their household and their family members are all gone,” Miller mentioned.
In some cases, the anguish comes from feeling a scarcity of security, which was the case with Kendal Lee Campeau.
In line with his sister, Campeau had lengthy struggled with psychological well being and managing his well-being, which was solely exacerbated by his expertise in jail.
Fontaine remembers when Campeau first advised her he was being abused in jail. She was on her option to Banff, Alta., for work in September 2019.
“I took a name on my headphones whereas I used to be driving, and I used to be attempting to not cry due to the issues he was sharing with me over the cellphone,” she mentioned.
When she later had a second to course of it, she was overwhelmed.
“I simply curled up into the fetal place. These sorts of issues that you simply simply do not hear. I knew his psychological well being was deteriorating.”
In line with Campeau, two correctional officers got here to his cell asking him to mop his room. He initially refused, at which level he mentioned the officers urinated within the bucket and proceeded to kick it over. From there, a bodily altercation ensued, which Campeau had initiated in retaliation.
Campeau advised his sister the officers then rushed him, restrained him and raped him utilizing the mop deal with. He tried to take his personal life shortly thereafter.
In an announcement to CBC, Correctional Service Canada mentioned “CSC manages a fancy and numerous inmate inhabitants which has a direct influence on the protection and safety of establishments…. Our workers are educated to deal with powerful conditions safely and professionally, with the purpose of avoiding hurt to anybody.”
‘I don’t belief an individual in a uniform’
Paperwork obtained by CBC Information present Campeau had at one level gone as far as to file his personal freedom of knowledge request attempting to acquire proof to corroborate an assault he claimed to have skilled.
He additionally filed a number of grievances, writing issues like “I’m scared and residing in worry for my very own private security, I’ve self harmed in consequence,” and “I moist the mattress and tempo greater than ordinary. I don’t belief an individual in a uniform” and “I’ve tried to debate my issues with the (safety intelligence officer) division and several other correctional managers.”
When Campeau died on Nov. 14, 2021, of an overdose, it was his second one of many day.
Of their assertion, CSC mentioned, “Inmates are screened for suicide danger after they arrive and all through their time in custody. Employees who work intently with inmates are educated to reply rapidly to self-harming behaviour or to indicators of suicide ideation.”
After a dying in custody, an investigation is obligatory. The investigation report on Campeau’s dying cites 25 compliance points. Amongst them is the truth that upon his arrival at Kent Establishment, a correct danger evaluation for suicide and safety was not accomplished, even though Campeau had a historical past of suicidal ideation and “self-injurious behaviour.”
Kendal Lee Campeau in an undated photograph from one in all his jail stints. (Submitted by Ashley Fontaine)
Proof in his cell upon his dying was additionally “not preserved and subsequently not examined.” The report mentioned the 2 correctional officers conducting the search “found a burned piece of tinfoil with what seemed to be remnants of illicit substances on it. Sadly, the suspected contraband was inadvertently disposed of in the bathroom.”
Fontaine is not positive her brother’s overdose was an accident.
“I shuttle with it…. I consider one thing occurred to him, however I do not know if it occurred by the hands of the guards or inmates or each.”
She says her brother advised her at one level that the officers gave him a razor blade and advised him to kill himself. Information point out he was discovered within the bathe with giant cuts on his arms and leg round this time.
“Kendal spent numerous time locked up. He talked about to me throughout cellphone calls that he simply wished all of it to finish.”
Lack of assist
Craig mentioned that one downside is that there aren’t sufficient efficient applications to assist inmates transition to parole launch.
“They give attention to … your danger components and tips on how to keep away from stressors and that kind of factor to keep away from coming again,” she mentioned. “However they do not assist you plan the practicality of launch: the place you are going to stay, who you are going to stay with, how you are going to earn a residing, these types of issues.”
As we speak, Fontaine needs she might have only one extra cellphone name along with her brother.
“Typically I simply want he might name me,” she mentioned. “The one factor I’ve left is his voicemail…. After I’m struggling generally I will hearken to that voicemail, and it isn’t all the time optimistic, however there’s some humour in there that makes me chortle.
“It makes me unhappy that I do not get to proceed making reminiscences with him, that my boys do not get to have that relationship with their uncle.”
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