Bending the rules

An inmate complained to us that the Institutional Crisis Intervention Team (ICIT) at his facility had used a bent-wrist hold on him (in which a person’s hands are twisted and held at an unnatural angle) during an incident – and broken both his wrists. He told us he had a pre-existing wrist injury that staff should have been aware of. We reviewed the case, including video of incident and the crisis team’s documentation.

RESULT: We identified several issues of non-compliance with provincial policies in this case, including that no crisis coordinator was present and the ICIT did not capture the whole incident on camera. As well, the severity of the inmate’s injuries should have prompted the facility to do a broader review of the incident. The facility completed this additional review after our intervention.

Ultimately, this case sparked changes to ICIT training and operations. For example, ICITs will be trained to check for any medical concerns before stepping in when operationally feasible and follow a checklist for what to capture on camera. The facility also acknowledged that a crisis coordinator should have been engaged in this case and will be in similar situations in future.