Murder on the Inside: The True Story of the Deadly Riot at Kingston Penitentiary

by Catherine Fogarty

Overview

Shortlisted for the Speaker's Book Award • Shortlisted for The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book

“You have taken our civil rights—we want our human rights.”

On April 14, 1971, a handful of prisoners attacked the guards at Kingston Penitentiary and seized control, making headlines around the world. For four intense days, the prisoners held the guards hostage while their leaders negotiated with a citizens’ committee of journalists and lawyers, drawing attention to the dehumanizing realities of their incarceration, including overcrowding, harsh punishment and extreme isolation. But when another group of convicts turned their pent-up rage towards some of the weakest prisoners, tensions inside the old stone walls erupted, with tragic consequences. As heavily armed soldiers prepared to regain control of the prison through a full military assault, the inmates were finally forced to surrender.

Murder on the Inside tells the harrowing story of a prison in crisis against the backdrop of a pivotal moment in the history of human rights. Occurring just months before the uprising at Attica Prison, the Kingston riot has remained largely undocumented, and few have known the details—yet the tense drama chronicled here is more relevant today than ever. A gripping account of the standoff and the efforts for justice and reform it inspired, Murder on the Inside is essential reading for our times.

Includes 24 pages of photographs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771964012
Publisher:	Biblioasis
Publication date:	04/13/2021
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	283,972
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Catherine Fogarty is a storyteller. She is the founder and president of Big Coat Media, with offices in Toronto, Los Angeles, Vancouver, and North Carolina. An accomplished television producer, writer and director, Catherine has produced award-winning lifestyle, reality and documentary series for both Canadian and American networks.

Catherine is the executive producer of the Gemini nominated series Love It or List It. In addition to that franchise, Catherine has produced several other lifestyle and documentary series including Animal Magnetism (W Network), My Parents' House (HGTV), and Paranormal Home Inspectors (Investigative Discovery Canada). Catherine also produced and directed I Don’t Have Time for This, an intimate documentary about young women with breast cancer.

Originally trained as a social worker, Catherine studied deviance and criminology. She worked with numerous at-risk populations including street youth, people with AIDS, abused women, and social services.

Catherine holds an MA in Social Work, an MBA in Human Resource Management, and an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from the University of Kings College. She was recently awarded the Marina Nemet Award in Creative Writing through the University of Toronto.

Read an Excerpt

A few months into researching the story I found myself driving to Kingston, Ontario, the picturesque town on the shores of Lake Ontario where Canada’s most famous prison opened in 1835. The original facility consisted of a single cellblock containing one hundred-and-fifty-four cells. Designed to hold five hundred inmates, its population grew every year as more and more desperate men found themselves locked away inside its walls.

I was heading into the ‘belly of the beast,’ having snagged a hard to find ticket for the Kingston Penitentiary Tour. Since the penitentiary closed its doors in 2013, thousands have flocked to the notorious prison to finally get a look inside. But I wasn’t just a curious tourist; I was a writer on a mission to find the true story behind the events of April 1971. I knew Kingston was the place to begin my research, after all it was the birthplace of the Correctional Service of Canada, and Kingston Pen was one of the city’s defining institutions. But, by the time I drove back to Toronto twenty-four hours later, I was only certain of one thing: the ghosts of the 1971 Kingston Penitentiary riot were not going to be easily awoken.

Although the riot had occurred decades earlier, I soon discovered this was an event that few were willing to revisit. Correctional Services of Canada (CSC) that controls all federal penitentiaries was quick to ensnare me in red tape. Calls and emails would go unanswered for weeks. Every request led to more forms and more delays. The Canadian Penitentiary Museum, which is conveniently housed in the former Warden’s office across the street from Kingston Pen, informed me that they had little information about the riot. The Kingston Police also had no records dating back to 1971.

Multiple trips to the Ontario archives required more paperwork, Freedom of Information requests, and further appeals. When documents were finally received they would often be heavily redacted. A trip to Queens Universityarchives to obtain historical photos from the Kingston Whig Standard led to even more frustration when it was discovered that someone had removed all of the photo negatives related to the four-day riot. But with each disappointment or closed door, I remained determined to exhume this story from behind prison walls.

Eventually, I was put in touch with a group of retired correctional officers. When I contacted the organizer of the group she was more than willing to offer assistance in trying to find any officers who had worked at Kingston pen during the riot, but she cautioned me that they might not want to talk. Once again I was up against a well-entrenched code. Prison guards for the most part, like police officers live behind a “blue wall” of silence.

A carefully worded email was distributed to over one hundred retirees, but my inbox remained empty. Then, a few weeks later I received one, short cryptic note; “I was there, but I don’t know how much I can tell you.” Eventually a few more emails followed. Soon, I was headed back to Kingston for several clandestine meetings in shopping malls and coffee shops. security prison during its deadliest siege, when men from all walks of life, convicts, lawyers, newsmen, politicians and prison administrators were thrust together to try to bring about a peaceful resolution to a dire situation. Out of the fray emerged some unlikely heroes who saved hundreds of lives including those of the kidnapped guards, while others sadly turned their rage towards the weakest among them.

But half a century after the Kingston Penitentiary riot when prisoners asked to be heard and demanded to be treated humanely, we have to ask, what have we learned? Our country still struggles with fundamental questions related to incarceration and basic human rights. Cruel injustices continue to happen in our prisons every day.

It is my hope that in re-creating this moment in our penal history, I have offered the reader a glimpse into a world that remains hidden from our view. A peek behind the curtain of a correctional system that is still deeply flawed in its philosophy and practices. Famous Russian philosopher Dostoyevsky once said: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” But how are we to judge, if we are still not allowed to see inside?

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Ticking Time Bomb 9

2 A New Approach To Incarceration 15

3 Canada's Toughest Ten Acres 25

4 Bingo! 41

5 The Embers Of Discontent 50

6 Shake Off The Shackles 53

7 Into The Night 65

8 In The Light Of Dawn 77

9 Take A Look Inside 83

10 The Citizens' Committee 92

11 Rumours And Rumblings 106

12 Under New Management 116

13 A Long Day Ahead 128

14 Circle Of Terror 138

15 The Execution List 143

16 The Best Show In Town 151

17 Heroes And Villains 160

18 Retribution 166

19 Running The Gauntlet 174

20 Innocent Until Proven Guilty 186

21 Bound In Darkness 203

22 Hiding In Plain Sight 211

23 The Kingston Thirteen 217

24 The Cost Of Killing 235

25 A Secret Deal 244

26 Cool Heads 257

After Kingston 268

Witnesses To A Riot 284

Notes 295

Acknowledgements 307

Editorial Reviews

02/22/2021

Fogarty’s well-researched and moving debut examines a 1971 Canadian prison riot and the conditions that caused it. Located in Kingston, Ontario, Kingston Penitentiary opened in 1835, making it Canada’s oldest prison. By 1971, the prison was in poor physical condition, overcrowded with inmates, and understaffed. Prisoners could spend years in solitary confinement, where many died by suicide and often ate only bread and water. On April 14 of that year, inmate Billy Knight, the prison’s barber, instigated a riot demanding better civil rights for the prisoners. Six guards were taken hostage, and an inmate committee started day and night negotiations with a citizens committee. The government had no intention of giving in to the inmates’ demands and ordered the army to surround the prison. With the army expected to storm at any minute, the general population became violent, almost destroying the prison and beating undesirable prisoners, namely sex offenders and snitches. Two died, and 14 had to be hospitalized. Four days after the start of the riot, the prisoners surrendered. Fogarty sympathetically portrays Knight and others who acted in good faith. For readers who have ever wondered about life behind bars, this is a must-read. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Murder on the Inside

“The uprising is cast in part as a prisoners-rights movement, but it is complicated by internal struggles among inmates ... [Fogarty] delivers them in three-dimensions, complicated, inconsistent, incomplete, flawed, but human beings who wanted and deserved better treatment ... A detailed and balanced record ... The book serves as a study of a moment and of its participants, who both reflect the time and transform it as the events of the 1971 riot would contribute to long-overdue penal reform in Canada. Where the book is at its best, the reader gets to know the inmates who struggle for power among one another and against the political system that forgot them.”
—Globe & Mail

“Fogarty’s approach makes for a compelling narrative and an extremely readable book ... Fogarty’s most significant contribution is in a number of original interviews with guards, including one who had been held hostage, and prisoners who had lived through the riot. These interviews allow for a rich chronicling of events ... Murder on the Inside successfully weaves a concise history of Canada’s most notorious prison into a compelling story of the 1971 riot and its aftermath and is a valuable contribution to the history of Canada’s prisons and the Canadian prison justice movement.”
—Ontario History

"Catherine Fogarty's page-turner is a story of social and political failure. She's worked very hard to flesh out the complex men on both sides of the 1971 Kingston Pen riot and make them into compelling characters. She's found fascinating heroes and moral cowards in places you won't expect. And, when you think you've reached the end of the story, Fogarty will show you injustice upon injustice. Almost no one comes out of this story looking good, including Canadians who think human beings should be locked in cages and left without hope."
—Mark Bourrie, lawyer and author of Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson

"Catherine Fogarty's moment-by-moment recreation of the bloody 1971 riot at the notorious Kingston Penitentiary is a compelling must-read. The depth of research is remarkable. The narrative crackles with tension and foreboding. Those caught up in the standoff—inmates, guards, prison officials and journalists alike—come alive. This searing portrait of the still-too-secret world of Canada's prisons truly is impossible to put down."
—Dean Jobb, author of The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream and Empire of Deception

“The most important observation author Catherine Fogarty makes in this her first book (and a good one) is not about the notorious riot in 1971 in Kingston Penitentiary (KP) that she examines, but her conclusion that Canada’s prisons are still much better at housing and hurting people than helping them ... Fogarty’s chronicle of the KP riot is a comprehensive and action-packed explanation of what went right and wrong when 500 prisoners in the worn-out and under-staffed pen went rogue ... Murder on the Inside is a shocking tale of sickening savagery and unrewarded heroics, and Fogarty details with growing confidence the unhealthy, sadistic straight-jacket life inside Kingston’s notorious maximum security prison 50 years ago.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

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