Today the Manitoba Government announced a new correctional facility would be built in Dauphin to replace the existing Dauphin Correctional Centre.
Manitoba Correctional Officers will no doubt welcome the news of a replacement facility in Dauphin, but the government’s overall plan to remedy chronic overcrowding in Manitoba jails has in no way been addressed today.
“The jobs that will stay and be created for the future in the Parkland region are welcome news, and certainly our Correctional Officers, and the citizens in this region, are looking forward to getting started on the long process of designing and building a replacement centre,” said MGEU President Michelle Gawronsky.
But the most pressing issue for Correctional Officers is the chronic overcrowding of inmates in our provincial jails, and today’s announcement moves us no further toward addressing this. According to Gawronsky, if there are no further announcements of expanded capacity in the near future, the problem will get worse, putting Correctional Officers, the public, and inmates themselves in danger.
“Managing current inmate populations is nearly impossible as it is,” Gawronsky said. “Whether it’s separating gang members, dealing with mental health and addictions issues, ensuring the delivery of programs and education, dealing with case work, or any other of the many challenges Correctional Officers face each day, our officers do amazing work under the most difficult of circumstances. But there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, and they’ve been given no reason to feel there’s any relief on the horizon with today’s announcement.”
The estimated time to design and build a new Corrections facility is estimated to be between five and eight years. If inmate numbers continue to rise as they have in the past, we’ll be no further ahead and we are already at a crisis point now in terms of the number of inmates within provincial jails..
The public has a huge stake in this, too, said Gawronsky. If the Corrections system cannot provide adequate resources to rehabilitate inmates (and space allotted for education and programs continues to get eaten up by demands for more housing of offenders), we’re simply graduating more effective criminals, not reforming individuals. That threatens community safety, she said.
“If the government cannot successfully bring down remand counts, and inmate populations continue to grow as they have, we are in very, very serious trouble. I am not being alarmist when I say we are looking at more violence at Manitoba jails,” she said. “We believe the federal Bill C-10 will bring inmate numbers up, and we haven’t seen a meaningful drop in remands since the ‘2 for 1’ remand credit has been brought in.”
The construction of the new correctional facility was a recommendation of the Adult Corrections Capacity Review Committee report. In the report,the committee provided the following eight recommendations to help in the future planning of the justice system:
- The Dauphin Correctional Centre is well beyond its structural usefulness, and needs to be replaced.
- The situation of those awaiting trial in the North especially in Thompson needs to be addressed.
- A reduction in the use of remand custody should free up space for sentenced offenders given the possibility of an increased provincial custody population with the reduction in conditional sentences predicted as a result of Bill C-10. With proper management in the community of more of those awaiting trial, new beds should not be necessary if the number of sentenced offenders in custody increases.
- We are not convinced that the approach of locking up on remand a large majority of those charged with offences is the best one to take. We are however convinced that it is the most expensive one. It is the Committee’s firm view that no expansion of prison beds for remand offenders should be undertaken unless and until all alternatives have been explored, including appropriate cost analysis. These alternatives include community risk management, bail support and supervision and other similar programs along with methods for greater efficiency in the court process.
- We recommend that Manitoba Justice re-examine the recommendations from the original AJI and the subsequent AJI Implementation Commission to see what may be done to assist in reducing the number of Aboriginal offenders in Manitoba Correctional Centres.
- We cannot expect prisons to solve the problem of why there are more female and Aboriginal female offenders, coming into the system. This requires a broader approach to the issues that are bringing increasing numbers of women, in particular Aboriginal women, into conflict with the law and into custody.
- It is the view of the Committee that the best strategy for dealing with gangs is to work to reduce the reasons for their existence in the first place. This would include addressing the factors of economic and social marginalization while providing opportunities for developing a sense of belonging to the wider society through community development, education and job training. These are complex issues and those which imprisonment will not resolve nor is it correct in any sense to expect it would.
- There is a need for other government departments and agencies that deal with our mentally ill offenders such as Manitoba Health, Manitoba Family Services and Housing, to work with Manitoba Justice and the Canadian Mental Health Association/Manitoba branch to develop an integrated approach to community based service delivery for mentally ill offenders.