No room in jail

VICTORIA – Tent accommodations in two maximum-security B.C. jails should soon be a thing of the past as Ottawa moves ahead on plans to expand its prison system.
Short of space for sentenced inmates and overwhelmed with accused awaiting trial that include some of Canada’s most feared criminals, in the summer of 2008 BC Corrections resorted to “free-standing structures” at Kamloops and Fraser Regional Correctional Centres. There are still two tents at the Maple Ridge facility and one at Kamloops, housing 50 inmates each inside the secure perimeter.
The Globe and Mail reported Friday that federal Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan is considering a series of “super-regional prisons” across Canada that could hold inmates of all security risks in separate locations. The Conservative government is moving ahead with mandatory minimum sentencing that would increase inmates, and is considering using the land and $4 billion budget now dedicated for its prison farm program for new cell space.
Provincial governments are responsible for accused remanded in custody, and for sentenced inmates serving less than two years. B.C. Public Safety Minister Kash Heed is the latest provincial minister to call for an end to the traditional “two-for-one” credit for time served awaiting trial, which gives an incentive for accused to clog courts and remand centres.
The B.C. government has embarked on its own prison expansion, after being thwarted by local native objections in an effort to build a new regional correctional centre north of Kelowna.
Surrey has been chosen to host an expanded provincial remand facility after Burnaby protests halted plans for a new one there.
B.C. has nine provincial facilities, and all are running more than 100 per cent of capacity. They include regional correctional centres in Prince George, Nanaimo, Maple Ridge, Kamloops and Victoria, as well as remand centres in Port Coquitlam and Surrey.
Ford Mountain Correctional Centre in Chilliwack specializes in sentenced sex offenders and those with mental disorders. Alouette Correctional Centre for Women is a former medium security men’s jail, also in Maple Ridge.
A jump in high-risk female prisoners has resulted in expansion projects at Alouette and Prince George, with completion expected in 2010. Prince George will add 20 extra cells for women on its existing site.
BC Corrections, which used to describe its prisoner accommodation as “living units,” now calls them cells. Most prisoners are now “double bunked” in provincial facilities, and new jail space will be designed to accommodate two people per cell.