It’s been four months since the conclusion of a super inquest into eight inmate overdose deaths at the Barton Street Jail. A jury came back with 62 recommendations, calling for change to prevent similar deaths.

Last week another inmate died and it doesn’t appear that any changes have been made.

The ministry has 6 months to respond but that deadline is quickly approaching.

There’s been more than a dozen drug overdose deaths in the last 6 years. The inquest exposed a lot of what happens behind the walls of the jail, but what is being done to fix it?

Lawyer Kevin Egan says, “Every inquest closes with the hope that it is going to mean something and then nothing happens and then somebody else dies.”

Most recently that somebody was 53 year old Christopher John Sharp, known as “Johnny” to his family.

He’d spent years in and out of jail, struggling with addiction since his teens.

This time, he’d been inside since March and was supposed to be getting out for Thanksgiving. On September 7th his family was told he died while in custody of a suspected drug overdose.

“It’s not necessarily surprising, just more surprising of where it happened. When someone is living the life that he did you think ok they are inside. You can take that breath because, ok you know where they are you are thinking that they are going to be ok but it turns out they are not.”

His family still trying to figure out what happened and how nobody found him until it was too late.

One of the jury’s recommendations was real time monitoring of inmates on security cameras. Something that isn’t being done.

According to Egan, “Keep an eye on the guys its just so basic I just can’t understand why the ministry won’t monitor the cameras in real time this is not the first jury to make that recommendation.”

The jail has created an “institutional security team”. Four people focused on looking for drugs and weapons, but it hasn’t been implemented yet. Right now they’re undergoing training.

Inquests have also been announced into the deaths of two other inmates. As for the Sharp family, it will likely be years before their inquest takes place and they learn what happened to Johnny.