Roger Caron (1937–2012)

Caron was a career criminal who told his story in his previous book, Go Boy! He was in the Kingston Penitentiary when the April 14, 1971 riot broke out ironically on a trumped up charge organized by two shady Toronto detectives, As the rioters became more desperate and violent, Caron became involved in assisting the leaders of the negotiations to reach improvements to the life of the convicts and end the riot.

As an eye witness to the events during the riot and a man who had already started to write his biography, he was a natural to write this volume. I have seen criticism of his version in that some of the material in the book is too outlandish to be true but I have also read Catherine Forgarty's "Murder On the Inside" which also covers the same event and I noticed she covered the same violent scenes with the same detail. In fact she sites Caron's book as a source.

Both books are strong in their criticism of the Canadian penal system as it was in the 1970's. The riot did force the government to bring in changes to make the system more caring with an emphasis on rehabilitation. The guards up to that point were a hard lot who violently abused prisoners without facing any penalty.

Very readable but the description of the violence meted out to the sex offenders by some of the convicts on the last day made very difficult reading. Caron was a good writer who won the Canadian Governor General's Award for Go Boy!… (altro)