A mother of seven children who was convicted of the “despicable” and “heinous” murder of three of those children and her husband’s first wife has begun serving her life sentence in a federal penitentiary in Kitchener, Ontario, Cancrime learned. Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42, (inset) was quietly transferred recently to Grand Valley Institution, a 15-year-old federal facility for women who are serving sentences of two years or more. Yahya’s husband Mohammad Shafia, 58, and her eldest son Hamed, 21, were moved to maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario, last week, Cancrime revealed previously.
Corrections Canada has suspended without pay eight correctional officers at maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary in an investigation into an alleged beating of a prisoner, Cancrime has learned. The group, all men, includes one supervisor. Internal memos from warden Jay Pyke reveal the identities of the officers who were suspended, effective October 7.
An investigation is underway into a “significant incident” at a federal prison in Ontario that threatens to bring Corrections Canada’s reputation into “disrepute,” the penitentiary service’s top official says, in an internal memo distributed to thousands of workers across the country. Cancrime obtained a copy of the memo from Don Head (inset), which does not provide specifics of the incident. Cancrime learned that police and Corrections Canada are investigating the allegation that an inmate from maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary was beaten by prison staff in retribution for an assault on a correctional officer.
A manager at a maximum-security federal prison in Ontario who was caught smuggling a substantial quantity of drugs last year, in a scheme apparently orchestrated by the Hells Angels biker gang, has been found dead. David Martin, 47, of Kingston, Ontario died Sunday, August 21. An 
Corrections Canada will build maximum-security cellblocks inside medium-security prisons in Ontario and Manitoba, a move that some observers believe is a government scheme to create super-prisons while avoiding public scrutiny and controversy. “They tell you they’re not going to build a super regional complex but it’s already here, it’s going to happen,” said Jason Godin, Ontario president of the union that represents correctional officers. “They wanted to appease the critics and say, ‘We’re not building a super jail.’ ”
It’s been roughly a year since the Harper government shuttered six convict-run penitentiary farms across Canada, despite howls of protest. Opponents said the farms were a useful, low-cost rehabilitative tool. The Tories ignored the critics and protesters and closed the farms. But the opponents won’t go away or stay silent. More than 100 people returned Monday evening, August 8, 2011 (see video after jump), to the main gate of Frontenac Institution in Kingston, Ontario, where two dozen people were arrested a year ago in a failed bid to block the closing of the pen farm at Frontenac. No one was arrested this time, though three Kingston police cruisers appeared just as the demonstration was winding down at 8 p.m.
Kingston, Ontario, is Canada’s penitentiary capital, with seven federal institutions (see the map after jump) within a 20-kilometre radius of the city centre, and another three prisons just north and west of the city. It’s the biggest concentration of pens anywhere in the country. A new burger joint opening in Kingston, a chain outfit that is spreading across Ontario called the Works, is paying homage to the city’s penitentiary pedigree with a menu item called the “Conjugal Visit Burger,” a nod to the naughty notion of convict hookups with family.
Corrections Canada will ask police to investigate whether a hate crime was committed when a federal inmate appeared online in a video (see it after jump) making a racial slur while taunting other prisoners who assaulted him. Joshua Erdodi, an inmate at Joyceville Institution in Kingston, Ontario, was nearly beaten to death in a riot at the medium-security prison on April 24. He was stabbed in the head and neck and he was beaten with weight-lifting equipment by a group of black inmates.
A correctional officer at a medium-security prison in Ontario suffered a suspected concussion and bruises after he was ambushed by a prisoner today in a violent attack on a cellblock. Corrections Canada isn’t providing much detail about the incident, perhaps in a bid to downplay the seriousness of the assault, but Cancrime learned that an inmate attacked the 
