* New content - updated 2 October 2011 following correspondence with prison officials from New Brunswick, Alberta, British Columbia and the Yukon.
With, what was then, a minority Conservative Government of Canada tabling a number of punishment measures in a stated effort to send more people to prison, for longer periods of time and fewer chances of release into the community for supervision prior to the expiry of their sentences, I wondered how prison authorities from across the country were planning to cope with the potential influx of new prisoners. What I have found in the last few years of doing research in this area has surprised me. While all provinces and territories had, at the very least, planned to build new prison spaces, most of these initiatives were being pursued in response to longstanding issues related to the increase in their remand populations since the mid-1990s, not federal sentencing measures.
Given that the new majority Conservative Government of Canada has just tabled an omnibus punishment bill that is likely to generate additional prisoners - particularly at the provincial-territorial level with provisions intended to further restrict the use of conditional sentences and new mandatory minimum sentences for the production, possession and trafficking of substances that have been deemed illicit (read here) - one question we must ask is: are the provinces and territories ready for an influx of new prisoners?
Research Process
In February 2009, I began a project that would identify the scope of new prison construction initiatives, as well as the justifications advanced by prison officials and external consultants in support of these projects. The first phase of data collection involved an online content search for relevant government press releases and web pages. I then contacted every prison authority informally by phone to inquire about penal infrastructure initiatives they had recently completed (i.e. operational facilities) and other projects that were underway at various stages of completion (e.g. planning, procurement, construction) since 2007. The third phase of data collection involved filing Access to Information and Freedom of Information requests to obtain relevant data.
By December 2009, I had accumulated a few thousand pages related to new prison spaces that were at various stages of completion. Having decided that I would publicize my research findings using various mediums, beginning with a presentation at a 17 February 2010 public forum I organized in Ottawa, I contacted provincial-territorial prison officials to review the data I had accumulated (e.g. new prisons, additions to existing facilities, number of new prisoner beds, construction-related costs and project status). I did this for two reasons: 1) I wanted to make sure I had the most up-to-date data to share with Canadians and 2) I wanted to make sure that in the event that my figures were deemed to be inaccurate I could legitimately point to a lack of government transparency as the source of such an outcome. It should be noted, that I repeated this exercise on two other occasions as I prepared for a 31 May 2010 presentation at the Bi-annual Meeting of the Provincial-Territorial Heads of Corrections and as I drafted a brief for a 3 March 2011 appearance before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.
* I also contacted provincial-territorial prison officials via e-mail on 23 September 2011 asking for the most up-to-date figures regarding construction-related costs and the net capacity gains associated with their penal infrastructure initiatives.
Findings
With the provinces and territories having been given the opportunity to vet my findings again at the beginning of March 2011, my written submission to federal parliamentarians noted the following: 1) there were 23 new provincial-territorial prisons and 16 additions to existing facilities at various stages of completion; 2) at least 7,348 new prisoner beds would come online once these new penal infrastructure initiatives were completed; 3) the construction-related costs for these projects was $3.049 billion and rising as estimates for a few projects had yet to be disclosed; and 4) only the governments of Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and Ontario had attempted to consider the impact of federal legislation when planning their prison capacity expansion projects. Since my March 2011 submission to the Standing Committee on National Security and Public Safety, a few new developments have emerged.
1) On 31 March 2011, the Government of Saskatchewan announced the construction of a 32-cell addition to the Pine Grove Correctional Centre for women in Prince Albert estimated to cost $12 million (read here). This addition is being erected in a stated effort to mitigate overcrowding in a facility "built in the mid 1960s to house 63 inmates and currently has an average daily inmate count of 120", which is said "to provide a much needed response to safely manage current and future projected inmate counts".
2) On 11 April 2011, the Government of Ontario announced the cost of the contract for the new South West Detention Centre in Windsor (read here). Amortized over 30 years, the estimated cost of building, financing and maintaining the facility is $336 million.
3) On 21 June 2011, the Government of Manitoba announced the appointment of a panel to assist with the province's plan "to design and build new jails", and to advise on the prison space needed in the decade ahead (read here).
4) In June 2011, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador cancelled plans to build a new remand centre in Labrador in a stated effort to divert funding towards programming for prisoners. It should be noted that no funding or prisoner bed estimates associated with this project had been disclosed during the primary phases of data collection as part of my study.
* 5) On 26 September 2011, an official from the Government of Yukon informed me that the new territorial prison in Whitehorse had come under its $67 million budget at $63 million.
* 6) On 26 September 2011, an official from the Government of British Columbia informed me that the number of new prisoner beds at the new remand centre in Surrey had been revised from 432 to 324 beds. The construction-related costs of the project had also been revised from $130 million to $112.5 million. The number of new prisoner beds as part of the new prison slated for construction in the Okanagan was revised from 720 to 540 beds. Prisoner bed figures were also modified for the second addition to the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women (208 to 156 beds) and an addition to the Prince George Correctional Centre (24 to 30 beds).
* 7) On 2 October 2011, an official from the Government of Alberta informed me that the New Edmonton Remand Centre is expected to have 1,952 prisoner beds (up 8 prisoner beds from previous information disclosures) when it opens and that a decision has been made to close the existing 734-bed Edmonton Remand Centre once it comes online. Thus, the new facility will add 1,218 new prisoner beds to Alberta's prison system, not 1,944 new prisoner beds as had been previously disclosed to the public. It should be noted, however, that if it is deemed that additional remand spaces are required, the New Edmonton Remand Centre will be able to expand by 3 pods totalling another 864 beds, which would bring the facility to 2,816 prisoner beds.
Are the Provinces and Territories Ready for an Influx of New Prisoners?
While the provinces and territories are in the process of adding thousands of new prisoner beds to their respective prison systems, it needs to be reiterated that most jurisdictions did not report to me that they had factored-in federal sentencing measures into their penal infrastructure initiatives. So what explains the prison capacity boom that has been unfolding at the provincial-territorial level in recent years?
According to information I have obtained, the provinces and territories are working towards relieving capacity pressures associated with a longstanding increase in the number of prisoners awaiting trial and / or sentencing. From 1986-1987, between 23 and 30 percent of provincial-territorial prisoners were on remand, which climbed to 40 percent by 2000-2001 (Johnson, 2003). In 2004-2005, approximately half of those incarcerated by the provinces and territories were on remand (Beattie, 2006). Since that time, those remanded in custody have outnumbered sentenced prisoners at the provincial-territorial level, totalling 58 percent in 2009-2010 (Porter and Calverley, 2011).
This shift in the Canadian prison population has contributed to overcrowding in many facilities operated by provincial-territorial governments. As noted in a 2008 report by Deloitte (read here), many jurisdictions across Canada have been double-bunking and sometimes even triple-bunking prisoners in response to this crisis (p. 98). The Deloitte report noted that one way Nova Scotia could respond to the remand demand would be to essentially redefine the term "capacity", to allow double-bunking as other jurisdictions have done (see p. 95 and pp. 98-99). This policy option was recommended despite the fact that Canada is a signatory to the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners that states:
9. (1) Where sleeping accommodation is in individual cells or rooms, each prisoner shall occupy by night a cell or room by himself. If for special reasons, such as temporary overcrowding, it becomes necessary for the central prison administration to make an exception to this rule, it is not desirable to have two prisoners in a cell or room.
In the current context, the temporary has become a permanent state of affairs with some prison authorities building facilities with double-bunking in mind. While the hang em' high crowd supports this kind of human warehousing, they should ask themselves what types of individuals do they want coming out of our prisons. They should also ask themselves what kind of social return on their investment in penal infrastructure they will be getting when the bulk of the research in this area has shown that increasing the use of incarceration has a negligible impact on the complex conflicts and harms in our communities that we call 'crime'.
In a 2009 report submitted to the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Ministers Responsible for Justice and Public Safety in Canada entitled Changing Face of Corrections Report, the members of this task force noted that if measures were not undertaken at all levels of the penal system to curb the remand demand, that the provinces and territories would be forced to build new penal institutions. They went even further, arguing: "Building remand centres is expensive and resourcing a bad trend [and] is paving a road we shouldn't be on" (p. 15). And here we are.
If the new provincial-territorial penal institutions at various stages of completion actually manage to address the remand demand, the new federal sentencing measures which were largely unaccounted for in the planning of these prison spaces may just plunge these jurisdictions back into the hole they've been trying to dig themselves out of. If this happens, the provinces and territories will again find themselves in the position where they will need to devise a strategy to mitigate overcrowding in their prisons, which is dangerous to prisoners, staff, but also our communities. The likely conclusion will be a carceral one - more prison construction. With a belief in the Gods of deterrence and incapacitation, the Conservative Government of Canada appears intent on pursuing this damaging path in the name of 'public safety'.
In an economic context where the feds and their provincial-territorial counterparts are running deficits, Canadians are being told that the costs of the Conservative omnibus punishment bill, costs they would rather not share with us, are "sustainable" (watch the CTV interview with Justice Minister Rob Nicholson). As someone who has just entered the full-time workforce whose future earnings have already been earmarked for prison spaces being built today, I wonder why the Conservatives do not have the courage to provide estimates to those footing the bill for their punishment binge, especially when they have a majority for the next four years. Those in power would never recommend to their constituents that they buy anything from a salesmen without a price tag on the basis of assurances that the cost of the good or service in question is "sustainable", yet we are expected to swallow serving after serving of penal pork.
For proponents of incarceration - one of which routinely goes on the "state broadcaster" preaching austerity, while supporting the costly Conservative punishment binge on another network - who point to the costs of victimization, which were estimated to be $99 billion in 2008 by a Department of Justice researcher (read here), to justify the expansion of prison spaces, answer this:
If we take this number at face value, which includes $15 billion in penal system costs, does increasing our reliance on incarceration - an approach deemed largely ineffective in reducing that which we call 'crime' - contribute to a reduction in these costs or will this simply add to the costs of victimization in this country?
PROVINCIAL-TERRITORIAL
PENAL INFRASTRUCTURE INITIATIVES
(2007-present)
* Note: In keeping with previous research practice, I have again resubmitted the data below to provincial-territorial prison officials today for updates and will post any discrepancies, should they exist, in the weeks ahead.
Summary
Number of new prisons: 22
Number of additions to existing facilities: 17
Number of additional prisoner beds: 6,312 - 6,317
Estimated construction-related costs: $3.375 billion
* See detailed project-by-project breakdown below.
Newfoundland and Labrador
Replacement Prison(s)
1 or 2 - for Her Majesty's Penitentiary
Location(s): to be determined
Net capacity gain: to be determined
Estimated construction cost: to be determined
Project phase: on hold
* Studying the impacts of federal legislation prior to implementation
Prince Edward Island
Addition - Provincial Correctional Centre
Location: Charlottetown
Replacement Remand Centre / Prison
Prince County Correctional Centre
Location: Summerside
Net capacity gain: 42 beds
Estimated construction cost: $18.5 million
Project phase: on hold
* Studying the impacts of federal legislation prior to implementation
Nova Scotia
Replacement Prison
Location: Coalburn
New Brunswick
Replacement for the Moncton Detention Centre
Southeast Correctional Centre
Location: Shediac
Net capacity gain: 122 beds
Estimated construction cost: $36 million
Project phase: construction
Replacement Prison
New Dalhousie Correctional Centre
Location: Dalhousie
Net capacity gain: 70 beds
Estimated construction cost: $20 million
Project phase: construction
Québec
New Replacement Prison
Location: Sept-Îles
New Replacement Prison
Location: Roberval
New Replacement Prison
Location: Sorel-Tracy
New Replacement Prison
Location: Amos
Closed Prison Retrofit and Re-opening
Location: Percé
Addition - Établissement de détention
Location: Québec
Net capacity gain: 96 beds
Estimated construction cost: $19 million
(shared with other additions)
Project phase: construction
Addition - Établissement de détention
Location: Amos
Net capacity gain: 36 beds
Estimated construction cost: $19 million
(shared with other additions)
Project phase: construction
Addition - Établissement de détention
Location: Trois-Rivières
Net capacity gain: 96 beds
Estimated construction cost: $19 million
(shared with other additions)
Project phase: construction
Addition - Établissement de détention
Location: Sherbrooke
Net capacity gain: 96 beds
Estimated construction cost: $19 million
(shared with other additions)
Project phase: construction
Ontario
New Remand/Intermittent Centre -
Toronto South Detention Centre / Toronto Intermittent Centre
Location: Toronto
Net capacity gain: 1,100 beds
Estimated construction cost: $1.1 billion
Project phase: construction
New Remand Centre - South West Detention Centre
Location: Windsor
Net capacity gain: 175 beds
Estimated construction cost: $336 million
Project phase: construction
Manitoba
Replacement Prison
New Prison for Women
Location: Headingly
Net capacity gain: 55 beds
Estimated construction cost: $60 million
Project phase: construction
Addition - Millner Ridge Correctional Centre (phase I)
Location: Beauséjour
Net capacity gain: 160 beds
Estimated construction cost: $50 million
Project phase: operational
Addition - Brandon Correctional Centre
Location: Brandon
Net capacity gain: 80 beds
Estimated construction cost: $5.7 million
Project phase: operational
Addition - The Pas Correctional Centre (phase I)
Location: The Pas
Net capacity gain: 40 beds
Estimated construction cost: $3 million
Project phase: construction
Addition - Millner Ridge Correctional Centre (phase II)
Location: Beauséjour
Net capacity gain: 64 beds
Estimated construction cost: $17 million
Project phase: construction
Addition - Millner Ridge Correctional Centre (phase III)
Location: Beauséjour
Net capacity gain: 160 beds
Estimated construction cost: $25 million
Project phase: construction
Saskatchewan
New Remand Centre / Prison
New Provincial Correctional Centre
Location: Regina
Net capacity gain: 211 beds
Estimated construction cost: $50.3 million
Project phase: operational
New Remand Centre
Location: Saskatoon
Addition - Saskatoon Provincial Correctional Centre
Location: Saskatoon
Addition - Pine Grove Correctional Centre
Location: Prince Albert
Net capacity gain: 32 cells
Estimated construction cost: $12 million
Project phase: procurement
Alberta
New Remand Centre - New Edmonton Remand Centre
Location: Edmonton
Net capacity gain: 1,218 beds
Estimated construction cost: $568.5 million
Project phase: construction
* An additional 3 pods totalling 864 beds may be constructed should it be deemed necessary.
British Columbia
New Remand Centre - Surrey Pre-trial Services Centre
Location: Surrey
Net capacity gain: 324 beds
Estimated construction cost: $112.5 million
Project phase: construction
New Prison
Location: Okanagan
Net capacity gain: 540 beds
Estimated construction cost: $200 million (to be approved)
Project phase: site selection
Addition - Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre
Location: Kamloops
Net capacity gain: 50 beds
Estimated construction cost: $14 million
(includes project costs for 100-bed FRCC and 24-bed ACC additions)
Project phase: operational
Addition - Fraser Regional Correctional Centre
Location: Maple Ridge
Net capacity gain: 100 beds
Estimated construction cost: see above
Project phase: operational
Addition - Alouette Correctional Centre for Women
Location: Maple Ridge
Net capacity gain: 24 beds
Estimated construction cost: see above
Project phase: operational
Addition - Alouette Correctional Centre for Women
Location: Maple Ridge
Net capacity gain: 156 beds
Estimated construction cost: $43.5 million
Project phase: construction
Addition - Prince George Regional Correctional Centre
Location: Prince George
Net capacity gain: 30 beds
Estimated construction cost: $11.5 million
Project phase: operational
Nunavut
New Prison - Women's Correctional Centre
Location: Iqaluit
Net capacity gain: 8 beds
Estimated construction cost: $2.9 million
Project phase: operational
New Prison - Men's Correctional Centre
Location: Rankin Inlet
Net capacity gain: 46 beds
Estimated construction cost: $29.4 million
Project phase: construction
Northwest Territories
Replacement Prison
New Territorial Women's Correctional Centre
Location: Fort Smith
Net capacity gain: 27-32 beds
Estimated construction cost: to be determined
Project phase: preliminary planning
Yukon
Replacement Prison - New Yukon Correctional Centre
Location: Whitehorse
Net capacity gain: 87 beds
Estimated construction cost: $63 million
Project phase: construction
Very informative post. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteOkanagan proposed Prison correction: 360 cells - double bunked = 720 beds. Double Bunked is not in keeping with International law.
ReplyDeleteRemand Centres: Holding people without being charged, without speedy trial or access to lawyers is not in keeping with International law.
No Prison in Lumby - demand restorative justice, legal aid and stop poverty.
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