What is the ‘con code’? The unwritten rules that may be fuelling prison violence

William Head Institution is shown through a security fence in Victoria, B.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Lam

VANCOUVER — In a Surrey, B.C., pretrial centre, an inmate is goaded into fighting his cellmate — dubbed a “rat” by fellow prisoners — but then dies after being put in a 10-minute chokehold.

In a Vancouver court, a convicted gangland killer with multiple murders to his name refuses to testify at a hearing, fearing the consequences if he co-operates.

And in a Quebec prison, serial killer Robert Pickton is fatally speared in the head by a fellow prisoner.

What binds the cases, prison advocates say, is the “con code” — a set of unwritten rules among inmates that they believe is behind a sharp rise in attacks behind bars. But they say Canadian courts have been reluctant to take the situation seriously.

Advocates say the phenomenon — also known as the inmate code or prison code — is the violent day-to-day reality for those involved in the prison system, well known to inmates, guards and lawyers. And while the Correctional Service of Canada acknowledged the problem, an officer said it was in a “Catch-22” situation, if reporting prison code violence would itself put an inmate at further potential risk.

Numbers provided by the correctional service show prison violence has increased by about 45 per cent in recent years. In fiscal 2021-22, there were 2,265 “assault related incidents” in federal institutions, while in 2024-25, that jumped to 3,279. The figures include assaults involving both inmates and prison staff.

Catherine Latimer, executive director of prison reform group the John Howard Society of Canada, pointed to a contempt-of-court ruling issued by the B.C. Supreme Court in December, after convicted killer Cody Haevischer refused to answer questions under cross-examination by a Crown lawyer, citing the “inmate code.”

He said the code prohibited inmates from “ratting” on fellow gang members or others if they’re still alive.

Haevischer was found guilty of six counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy in 2014 over his role in the so-called “Surrey six” murders in 2007.

He was testifying at an evidentiary hearing last July as part of his ongoing bid for a stay on his case, claiming police misconduct and inhumane prison conditions tainted his trial.

“As an inmate in prison, and a general population inmate specifically, naming names or co-operating in any way, I’ll be viewed as a rat and put my life in immediate danger,” Haevischer testified.

The judge cited him for contempt and told him, “your inmate code, as you’ve described it, isn’t a code that prevails in this courtroom,” while ruling his claims of “duress” lacked an air of reality in the absence of a “concrete threat” to his life by other inmates.

But Latimer said the court’s finding was concerning because prisoners know violating the inmate code by co-operating with authorities can put their lives in danger.

“It should be taken seriously and is taken seriously by correctional authorities and by others,” Latimer said. “All I can say is if I had been (Haevischer), I would have opted for the contempt charge rather than loss of life.

“This guy I’m sure was quite genuine in being afraid for his life.”

Chris McLaughlin, a senior project officer with the Preventive Security Intelligence Branch of Correctional Service Canada, said the code “can vary from institution to institution.”

“There are a number of different aspects to it which include not co-operating with authorities, paying your debts and stepping up if you’re disrespected,” he said. “The inmate code is a thing that does exist. We acknowledge that. We train our staff in recognizing the negative behaviours that are explicit within that.”

He said inmates who feel unsafe could inform prison staff of any “incompatibilities” with other offenders.

Co-operating with prison authorities may be against the inmate code — but McLaughlin said authorities can’t take action on threats they don’t know about.

“If somebody feels that they are in jeopardy already and that they would increase that jeopardy somehow by seeking out some type of assistance, then we’re kind of in a Catch-22 situation,” he said.

Latimer said the murder of B.C. serial killer Robert Pickton at a maximum security institution in Quebec raised a litany of questions about how someone like him, whose offences made him a target under the inmate code, was accessible to harm.

Pickton was waiting for medication in a common room of Quebec’s Port-Cartier Institution on May 19, 2024, when fellow prisoner Martin Charest thrust a broken broomstick into his face. Pickton died in hospital less than two weeks later.

“He was a sex offender and part of the prison code is that if you get a shot at a sex offender, you have an obligation to sort of assault them,” Latimer said.

Charest pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of Pickton in September 2025, saying he “killed him for the victims.”

Latimer said an independent observer’s report for the correctional service into the killing was inadequate.

“How did he get access to Pickton? How did he get within range of assaulting him? Normally they would keep people like Pickton, who’s particularly vulnerable, in a protected wing, protected from other prisoners who are assaultive,” she said. “There’s a lot in that (report) that doesn’t add up and leaves me with still a lot of unanswered questions about what happened to Robert Pickton.”

Adherence to the inmate code has also had deadly consequences for those in jail for minor offences.

At a pretrial centre in Surrey, B.C., in August 2016, John Murphy was goaded into a deadly fight with cellmate Jordan Burt. They were not enemies, but “dominant members” of the segregation unit where they were housed told Murphy that Burt was a rat, according to a B.C. provincial court sentencing decision.

The ruling says Burt was serving time for a probation violation, and the Toronto Star reported in 2019 that Murphy was behind bars for breaching a driving-ban imposed after he was involved in a fatal drunk-driving incident when he was 20.

Burt, 21, denied the “rat” accusation, and Murphy, 25, didn’t want to fight, but the other inmates were “vocal in making clear” that Murphy was obligated to fight Burt. Burt “gained the upper hand, putting Mr. Murphy in a chokehold,” which lasted for more than 10 minutes before Murphy died.

Burt pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to five and 1/2 years.

“They liked each other, but the unique and warped prison culture in which they lived pitted them against each other,” B.C. provincial court Judge James Sutherland found in 2018.

“This incident arose from the prison culture or this code, and ultimately it perpetuates the prison code and prison politics, and thus the power of distribution in prison. The incident cannot be condoned, even if perpetuating the code was not Mr. Burt’s motivation.”

‘Still lives within myself’

Lawrence Da Silva served 19 years in prison for the violent carjacking and confinement of Toronto lawyer Schuyler Sigel and his wife, Lynn, and has been out since 2016.

He now works with the John Howard Society, and said in an interview that even after nearly a decade on the outside, the inmate code still pervades his life.

“Unfortunately sometimes the inmate code still lives within myself,” he said. “It was something that was trained into us, not only by other offenders, but by the empowerment of guards.”

He said he learned very early on that talking to guards, or speaking with them for too long, “could look suspicious and you could be targeted.”

Adhering to the code, inside and outside prison, is “vital” to survival, he said.

He said prison hierarchy puts “rats” at the bottom, along with so-called “box thieves” who steal from the cells of fellow inmates, and sex offenders. Da Silva said “going against the grain” of the code would have violent, sometimes deadly, consequences.

“There are people inside that will not allow you to break the rules. They will attack you, they will kill you. And they will kill you in front of the guards. I’ve been stabbed multiple times,” he said.

“Where I came from, the con code was exacerbated by methodical means of violence, throwing boiling oil or jam or water mixed with coffee — things that will not roll just off your skin. This is serious violence that people carry out for the con code.”

Da Silva said it is “offensive” to hear judges and politicians acknowledge the existence of the code but not take it seriously, citing remarks by Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew last year.

Kinew denounced a Supreme Court of Canada finding that mandatory minimum sentences over child sex abuse materials are unconstitutional.

“Not only should (you) go to prison for a long time, they should bury you under the prison. You shouldn’t get protective custody. They should put you into general population, if you know what I mean,” Kinew said in November.

Edmonton defence lawyer Tom Engel said Kinew’s comments were a “disappointment,” echoing criticism he’s levelled at other Canadian politicians for failing to condemn prison violence.

“Politicians are not only condoning it, but they’re encouraging it,” Engel said.

Engel said he’s been involved in many cases that also point to a “code of silence” among prison guards, allowing violence and complicity in inmate attacks to go unchecked.

The code is well-known in legal circles, he said, but it’s incumbent on lawyers to present compelling evidence for judges to take “judicial notice.”

John Randle, spokesman for the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers for the Pacific Region, said the inmate code and prison populations have shifted a lot over his 17 years as a guard.

He said gang members are no longer mixed in with rivals in general population. But the abolition of administrative segregation has made managing violent prisoners more difficult.

“I think that risk of violence is present whether you break the code or not in jail,” he said, and it would be “naive” to believe violence could be stopped in prisons, citing the impact of the drug trade behind bars.

“Drugs have always been probably the No. 1 cause of violence in prison,” he said, and also inmate debt that resulted from the trade. “With drones and technology, you have every single gang all vying for that power and they all have drugs coming in.”

Nora Demnati, a prison law practitioner in Quebec, is the president of the Canadian Prison Law Association. She said the B.C. Supreme Court’s contempt finding in the case of Cody Haevischer stirred up “disappointment” in prison law circles.

“Judges tend to not recognize how real it is,” Demnati said, adding that the unique circumstances of an inmate under duress cannot be reconciled with a “strict application of the law.”

“It’s naive to believe that prisoners are perfectly protected in prison because things happen very quickly in prison.

“A lack evidence of the immediate fear or the temporality of the fear or of the threat to him, those are things that cannot be explained as the law wants them to be explained in terms of the rules of evidence.”

Demnati said she’s had “countless” clients who have been attacked in prison on “mere suspicion” of violating the inmate code, and those who have reported their fears to authorities have had their concerns dismissed.

She said courts should stop considering violence committed in prison an “aggravating factor” when sentencing people who have little choice. Instead, she called for greater recognition from the justice system and the correctional service of the complex underlying factors — unresolved trauma, mental health issues and addiction.

“As long as they refuse to see that and address it on a purely punitive and (through) a security lens, violence in prison will prevail because they’re not addressing the core reason why people engage in violent behaviour in the first place,” she said. “But other than that, I don’t know. I’m not too much of an optimist when it comes to changing the system.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 6, 2026.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press