Kingston Penitentiary an infamous institution with a dark, storied past

It looms large over the city, its towering stone walls concealing the buildings that have housed some of the country’s most notorious inmates over time.

After surviving multiple riots, infrastructure upgrades and 177 years of operation, an announcement by the federal government Thursday was what ultimately sounded the death knell for Canada’s oldest prison.

The Kingston Penitentiary will be shuttered over the next two years as the government cuts costs.

But while those familiar with the institution say there’s no doubt it is a historic structure, there are some who say its closure is long overdue given what they call its dark past.

“It’s symbolic of man’s inhumanity to man,” said Peter Hennessy, who authored a book exploring the history of the penitentiary after heading the facility’s citizen’s advisory committee.

“The place should have been closed in 1971 after the major riot had occurred when almost inestimable damage had been done to the institution.”

The riot Hennessy refers to wasn’t the prison’s first, but was a significant point in its history.

The chaos lasted four days and resulted in the death of two inmates. Much of the prison was destroyed in the process. The incident triggered a substantial increase in security and brought in reforms.

The maximum-security prison currently houses 350 male inmates in individual cells and can hold up to 421.

It was renovated in the 1990s to upgrade decades-old infrastructure, but the much of the original architectural features characteristic of huge prisons built in the 19th century were kept on.

Those elements included the housing of the well-behaved offenders alongside the worst-behaved ones and a structure that emphasized the physical and psychological gap between offenders and the officers who policed them, said Hennessy who walked through the prison multiple times.

“Rehabilitation implies depth of understanding, shared concerns, psychological support. And so that arrangement of the prison, which goes back to the 18th century and some of the European models…deliberately fostered that separation of keeper from prisoner,” he said.

“The famous destruction of the riot of 1971 was proof if anybody needed it, that the place was a school for destruction and a school for negative consequences.”

According to Hennessy, the Kingston Penitentiary has always struggled with the approach officers took towards prisoners.

“To have a management system based on the notion that the prisoners belong to an inferior segment of society, however that might be justified, is not a constructive way to bring about improvement in society,” he said, adding that he often witnessed guards verbally abusing inmates who in turn viewed officers as “bad people.”

“It was what I would describe as a sick psychological situation.”

Over the years the facility has held a number of high-profile criminals and is still currently home to serial killers and rapists Paul Bernardo and Russell Williams.

Despite the controversy it has been involved in, the Kingston Penitentiary has nonetheless held a place in Canadian lore for a long time, said Allan Manson, a Queen’s University law professor with an expertise in prisons and sentencing.

“This is an historic structure in the Canadian criminal justice system,” he said.

“It was the first penitentiary, opened in 1835 at the time when the world was just seeing the development of these large, awesome penal structures.”

In addition to the old cell blocks, the one other thing the walls of the penitentiary currently conceal is a treatment centre which provides mental health services to prisoners. Closing that facility will mean inmates with specific psychological needs may need to be moved out-of-province or could be treated at already over-burdened facilities run by the province, said Manson.

“Federal penitentiaries are overcrowded,” he said. “This just exacerbates the system.”

Meanwhile, as news of the penitentiary’s closure was received by those living in Kingston itself, many expressed a desire to have the prison’s imposing physical structure — which is a designated national historic site — preserved after its inmates move out.

“It’s one of the remnants of (former prime minister) John A MacDonald’s time in Kingston, he was the one that made it possible, to have that built here,” said Gordon Sinclair, president of the city’s historical society.

“It’s certainly a landmark in Kingston.”

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