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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Prisoners sleeping in remand centre gym

New crime laws expected to make situation worse

By: Mary Agnes Welch and Mia Rabson

Posted: 02/7/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

PART of the Winnipeg Remand Centre's gym has been turned into a dorm for overflow inmates, and literacy programs have been pared back due to lack of space.

As of Monday morning, the province's jails had 928 more inmates than beds.

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And it's going to get worse due to new federal tough-on-crime legislation that experts say could boost Manitoba's jail population by 25 per cent. That's the estimate John Hutton, the executive director of the John Howard Society, will present today to the provincial committee tasked with planning Manitoba's next round of jail construction.

A 25 per cent increase would add at least 500 more inmates to the provincial system, costing an extra $35 million a year. That's over and above any normal annual increases, like the nine per cent increase in inmates this year over last.

The John Howard Society based its figure on related estimates made by the independent federal correctional investigator and the parliamentary budget officer.

So far, it's the best guess out there on the impact of the Harper government's omnibus crime bill, which will, among other measures, create mandatory minimums for some drug crimes and end house arrest for other crimes.

Manitoba Justice Minister Andrew Swan said his department has no sense yet what the new federal laws will do to the province's jail population.

"It's not an easy thing to figure out," he said. "There will be an impact on the prison system, but it's tough to say what it will be."

Already, with the province's jails dramatically over capacity, Hutton said his agency has had to rethink how it offers literacy and tutoring programs to inmates, especially at the remand centre in downtown Winnipeg.

Classroom space has been repurposed to house inmates awaiting trial. The constant movement of inmates has also been a challenge for volunteers trying to make progress with programs. Inmates may spend a few nights in remand, be sent to an empty bed at Headingley or Milner Ridge, only to return to the remand centre for a court date.

Where once John Howard offered reading classes to 100 inmates at a time, the agency is focusing its programs on roughly 25 inmates likely to be in remand for a while and offering much more intensive tutoring.

Other programming, such as anger-management classes, drug and alcohol counselling and job training, has also been squeezed out, said Hutton.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 7, 2012 A3

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