to construct his ladder, after all the other inmates had filed out and returned to their cells. Conn waited until the southeast tower guard went off duty at 11 p.m., broke through a screen door in the loading bay and bolted across the yard to the fence. Because of his dummy ploy, his escape wasn't discovered until the next morning. (2 May 1999 The Toronto Star)
A week after his escape police believed he robbed $15,000 from a CIBC bank in Colborne, a town just east of Toronto, the same bank he had robbed following a similar escape from Collin's Bay Penitentiary in 1991. He stole a Buick, and robbed a Canadian Tire store of a shotgun and two boxes of shells. He then drove to Scarborough to get rid of the vehicle.
The Special Investigations Unit, a quasi-external review body that investigates police involvement in misconduct, injury, or death, began looking into the case, but any inquest was called off in 2001 by an Ontario coroner, who indeed confirmed that Conn had committed suicide.Following Conn's escape, Kingston Penitentiary instituted a number of improvements in security, including new, round-the-clock staffing of guards on watchtowers, and more thorough roll-call systems. (22 May 1999 Winnipeg Free Press)
Hostage-Taking Attempts and Riots
In April 1971 a riot broke out over the protest of inmate "undesirables," including sex offenders and informants. Inmates were dragged from their cells, tied up and tortured on the dome floor of the penitentiary, resulting in the deaths of two prisoners and a subsequent police investigation (Desroches 1974). However, scholars have speculated there were numerous factors underlying the eruption of the riot in 1971, not the least of which was stigma-targeted violence. Boredom was considered a major factor, fomenting a culture of agitation, restlessness, and pent-up rage common to many maximum-security penitentiaries, and what may be involved in the so-called "rage complex" endemic to the supermax facility.
Another major reason was the institution's inability to maintain a strong treatment program for offenders. Coupled with severe overcrowding, crumbling living conditions, staff shortage, improper placement of low-risk individuals into high-security units, idle time, and a notable lack of staff or communication channels responsive to inmate complaints and requests. Specifically, the Swackhamer Inquiry that followed the riot identified what it termed as "depressing and dehumanizing" qualities of imprisonment to be at the top of its list of potential factors.
According to psychiatrist George Scott, an environment of hopelessness, disinterest, and apathy surrounded correctional rehabilitation and the prospect of actually completing one's sentence successfully. As conditions worsened and this sentiment progressed, correctional staff naturally began to restrict more privileges to constrain rebellion, establishing an increasingly more strict, maximum-security regime that gave inmates littler and littler breathing room as the years went by. Conditions progressed to a point at which inmates at Kingston Penitentiary were daily experiencing a kind of "maximum security psychosis" (p.20), where inmates were confined to their cells 16 hours a day, were forbidden cell decorations, and required to subject all personal possessions such as books, or musical instruments to search and seizure. In a merciless attack on the conditions at Kingston Penitentiary, the Inquiry stated that such an environment will render the convict "submissive to the inmate culture," and it concluded by saying that "such a regime does a real injustice to a human being and is destructive of whatever humanity may be within him."
14 years later, in March of 1985, inmates took four nurses and one prison guard hostage at Kingston Penitentiary's hospital. The hostages eventually managed to slip through a door and lock it behind them, allowing a tactical team to sweep in. One hospital nurse, Gladys Whelan, who was a diabetic, was released early.
After it was over, the hostage takers were put into solitary confinement. There were no i