Kingston Penitentiary officials, citing regulations that keep prisoners’ names and locations secret, seized Toronto Star letters mailed to dozens of inmates that request information and opinions on their lives within the 19th-century maximum security facility that is slated for closure.

The Star letters, inspired by California-based media group Coleman-Rayner that wrote to death-row inmates across the United States, were intercepted during the summer “for privacy reasons,” said Michele Vermette, assistant warden, management services, at Kingston Penitentiary.

“That’s why we held them up,” said Vermette when contacted by the Star on Sept. 19 — about eight weeks after 61 letters were mailed via Canada Post — after hearing nothing back from prisoners or penitentiary officials.

“To my knowledge, (it’s) because you wanted information from the inmates and we were kind of unclear how you’d gotten what inmates live here (because) we aren’t allowed to tell media outlets that kind of information,” she said.

However, penitentiary staff may not have followed Correctional Service Canada (CSC) policy in “promptly” notifying inmates that their mail had been intercepted, according to the Office of the Correctional Investigator. Director of Investigations Marie-France Kingsley said senders are also to be advised when their documents are seized.

In an email to the Star dated Sept. 28, Wendy Smith, the CSC acting regional communications manager for Ontario, apologized for the delay in responding about the status of the prisoners’ mail, which she said was opened and read, according to CSC policy).

“Notification will be provided to all offenders to whom the letters were addressed,” Smith wrote, but gave no time frame for when that was to be done.

“It is extremely unusual for an institution to receive this number of letters addressed to individual offenders, in particular from a media outlet,” Smith continued.

Prisoner safety concerns blocked the mail dispersal within Kingston Penitentiary, she said.

“The Correctional Service of Canada is bound by the Privacy Act not to disclose the location of offenders, which includes neither confirming nor denying that they are at a particular institution,” Smith wrote. “As such, the letters are being returned to you.”

The withheld mail raises questions about the media’s ability to contact inmates without government interference or censorship and the reasonable expectation of prisoners to receive mail addressed to them.

CSC media guidelines require a facility unit head or media relations officer to approve interview requests. Then the inmate must agree in writing to the media request.

The Star chose not to follow those guidelines. In sending personalized letters through Canada Post, we wanted to give inmates the option to accept or decline requests for a written response to our questions.

Smith said the Star had violated the CSC interview process.

“It was determined that these letters actually constitute a request for interview as you are soliciting responses to specific questions from each of the offenders,” she wrote.

Kent Roach, a professor of law at the University of Toronto and the school’s chair in law and public policy, said the letters should have been delivered regardless of whether media policy was followed.

“I don’t understand the privacy rationale for not giving the prisoners your letter,” said Roach, an author who has written extensively on Canadian law.

“I think it’s very important for people to understand that, first, prisoners are people and second, they don’t have access to the outside world except through mail and the telephone. So restrictions of this kind, I think, would have a very severe impact on prisoners.”

Unlike the practice in the United States, where the public can search for offenders from databases, that information in Canada is kept secret.

In July, Star reporters and library staff searched public records — mostly newspaper stories — and came up with the names of 61 convicts who may have been in Kingston when the letters were mailed two months ago.

Some of it was guesswork; some of the 61 offenders written to may not have been there at all. But some were obvious because of their high-profile trial coverage, like killers Russell Williams, Paul Bernardo and father-and-son duo, Mohammad and Hamed Shafia.

The Star correspondence did not ask about the prisoner’s crimes or victims. The form letters (all were identical except for salutation) asked the men to voluntarily describe their activities, thoughts and opinions within the antiquated facility.

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Toronto prisoners’ rights lawyer Shane Martinez said he has heard from journalists that in some correctional facilities, staff will “sit on things” or remove reporters’ numbers off inmates’ phone lists so they cannot be called.

“I don’t know why they would try to throw up a hurdle to prevent the press from communicating with inmates,” Martinez said.

“I think the only (reason) is they’d be trying to make it difficult for prisoners to have a voice. It’s just part of a very politicized administrative process that happens within these institutions,” Martinez said.

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