Inmates living in visitation areas
Inmates at the Saskatoon Correctional Centre are living in visiting areas and some have been transferred to the provincial jails in Prince Albert and Regina due to overcrowding.
Visitations have been on and off since June 8 — eight days of visits have been cancelled for the medium and high-security inmates and three days of visits have been cancelled for low-security inmates, Justice Ministry spokesman Drew Wilby said.
Two inmates are staying in the visitation pod area, with four to six inmates in the central visiting area at any given time, but eight can be accommodated, he said.
Visiting and classroom areas have been converted into dormitory-style accommodations.
“(In) Saskatoon, basically it’s safe to say that most of the areas are now living areas,” Wilby said. A few programming areas remain, and Wilby said the jail will try to “reclaim” some of the program areas for their original purposes when the population comes back down.
The ministry has also moved some of Saskatoon’s inmates to the Regina and Prince Albert jails. Wilby said the inmate population has shrunk in Prince Albert’s jail and there’s also some capacity at Regina’s facility. In April, 46 inmates were moved to either Prince Albert or Regina. Thirty were moved in May and 28 were moved this month.
The overcrowding is attributed to a high inmate population, exacerbated by the closure of one unit for renovations, which removes 46 beds, Wilby said.
“That’s shorting us of a bit of space that we otherwise could use as living space.”
The ministry doesn’t have a firm timeline for when renovations to its “Charlie” unit will be complete.
“We’re hopeful for October, but we don’t have a final date on that yet,” Wilby said.
Saskatoon Correctional Centre’s inmate population sat at 469 on Thursday. Two days earlier, it was 490. The number of inmates in custody tends to peak in April, May and June, before levelling off during the summer, rising again in the fall and levelling off again in the winter, Wilby said.
Saskatchewan Government Employees’ Union president Bob Bymoen expressed frustration. He said workers have been contacting him regularly, asking the union to do something on their behalf. The areas were meant for visitation, not to be dorms — but staff are still expected to provide the same level of care, programs and rehabilitation for the inmates, he added.
“Denying family visitations, I can’t imagine how that’s useful when it comes to rehabilitation. So when the inmates get out, it’s got a trickle effect into the safety of the public if we’re not doing an adequate job rehabilitating the inmates when they’re in jail.”