A St. John’s lawyer says despite numerous reports into problems in the province’s correctional system, little has been done, and inmates are coming out worse than they were when they went in.

Bob Buckingham has filed a Statement of Claim against the provincial government on behalf of the family of Douglas Neary who died while in custody at HMP in August of 2017.

It’s the second lawsuit filed against government for wrongful death, the first filed by Jerome Kennedy on behalf of the family of Skye Martin who died after an incident at the Clarenville Correctional Facility for Women in April of 2018.

Buckingham calls Her Majesty’s Penitentiary an antiquated system more closely akin to a penal facility than a correctional facility.

He says inmates are emerging at the end of their sentence in an even worse condition than when they went in, and the province has a long history outlining similar issues to those raised recently by retired RNC Superintendant Marlene Jesso in her report on the deaths of four inmates in custody.

He says you can go back as far as the 1993 Reid Report into the death of Michael Simon that outlined issues that have to be addressed in relation to mental health. He also cites the “Decades of Darkness” Report that was released in 2008 and claims nothing of consequence has been done.

He calls that “despicable.”