Thirty years ago, on the night of April 29, 1992, an uprising broke out at the Montreal Detention Center located on Gouin Boulevard. This uprising of the prisoners once again shed light on the miserable conditions of confinement in this dilapidated building. Return to the archives of the most important Bordeaux prison riot.
Sa Newscast On April 29, 1992, host Bernard Derome recounted current events at the Montreal Detention Center on Gouin Boulevard.
Barricaded inside, hundreds of inmates from wings B, C and D control part of the prison. The heaters were cut, the pipes were cut and the fire was raging in the yard.
Inmates have long complained about overcrowding at the facility. According to one detainee, some crammed three or even four into a cell, while others were forced to confine themselves to cellars where cockroaches congregate.
” They treat us like animals, so now they have animals in chains. I need less than a month. I’m not doing it for me, I’m doing it for those next to me. “
Dispatched to the scene, more than 200 police from SQ and the city of Montreal surrounded the jail to prevent an escape. Firefighters and paramedics were also there. Fifteen people were injured due to uncomfortable smoke and rubber bullets fired by police at the rioters.
The excitement lasts 12 hours. The mutineers will not return to their cells until 10 am the next morning.
On April 30, 1992 at magazine publishing, journalist Alexandre Dumas reported tonight of the uprising when 700 detainees ransacked the Bordeaux jail to denounce their conditions of incarceration.
The balance is heavy. Fifty fires were lit throughout the B, C and D wings.
The material damage is estimated at nearly one and a half million dollars and 170 cells are now uninhabitable.
The minister responsible for public security in Quebec at the time, Claude Ryan, acknowledged that adjustments needed to be made to alleviate the problem of prison overcrowding.
” An overflow like this is expected, some say, because of the unhealthy climate inside the walls. The places are crowded, dilapidated and unclean. “
Ten years later Newscastjournalist François Paulin presents a report following another riot, which was on January 24, 2003, in which prisoners searched this time the A -wing of the establishment.
François Paulin goes back to many redundancies in the history of the Bordeaux prison.
Source: Radio-Canada
