Healing lodges, designed for Indigenous inmates, are failing the people they’re meant to rehabilitate, say prison reform advocates – National Observer
February 1st 2023
Have healing lodges lost their way as a medicine to Indigenous over-incarceration?
It’s a question the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP), which represents urban and non-status Indigenous Peoples, is asking after the tragic death of Cassandra Fox, a 27-year-old inmate who died by suicide last Wednesday at the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge in Saskatchewan.
“The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples calls on CSC (Correctional Service Canada) to ensure the inquest of her death is conducted immediately and publicly,” CAP vice-chief Kim Beaudin said in a press release.
Correctional Service Canada has said it is reviewing the circumstances of Fox’s death, “as in all cases involving the death of an inmate.”
