OPSEU BOSS SLAMS ‘SHOCKING’ DETENTION CENTRE CONDITIONS
‘In segregation, you’ve got two inmates in a cell, sometimes three,’ Thomas says
Ottawa’s jail contends for the worst in the province and is much worse than when he last saw it about 10 years ago, the president of the union representing most of its guards and staff said after a tour Tuesday.
“Using showers in a segregation unit as cells. That’s a first for me,” Warren (Smokey) Thomas of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union said in the cold by the gates of the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre on Innes Road. “They have doors that’ll lock so they use them as a cell.”
Ottawa’s jail is notorious. An oversight committee reported last fall that it’s overcrowded and poorly heated. Mental-health services are almost nonexistent, the food is often stale or spoiled and inmates are locked down in their cells and visiting hours cancelled because there aren’t enough staff to supervise them properly.
“They’re so crowded. They have so many people with mentalhealth issues, or they can’t get along with other inmates, or they self-harm. They’re supposed to be segregated, but in segregation you’ve got two inmates in a cell, sometimes three. I saw that with my own eyes and that’s shocking,” Thomas said.
Thomas has been criss-crossing Ontario to see each jail and has been to about a dozen so far (next is the superjail in Penetanguishene). He gave the jail’s managers and the Ministry of Correctional Services credit for letting him visit, saying they held nothing back.
Of course, it’s probably in their interests to have Thomas doing what he’s doing. The jail’s managers would doubtless like renovations and more staff; the ministry would probably like to supply them, though spending more on jail inmates isn’t really a vote-winner.
The thing is, however satisfying it might be to imagine keeping a few hundred low-lifes in misery, most of the people in jail are there on remand, meaning they haven’t been convicted of any- thing yet. And the sentences that get a person put in provincial jail top out at two years less a day.
One way or another, nearly everyone in that hole will be getting out. If they’re mentally ill, in particular, treating them like dirt won’t make them emerge as productive members of society.
“The inmates’ living conditions are my members’ working conditions and vice-versa,” Thomas said. “If you’re housed like an animal, you’re apt to behave like one. That sounds harsh, but it’s true. I’ve seen some of the cells. I wouldn’t put people in them. I sure wouldn’t put three people in them.”
Imagine being locked in a bathroom with two people you don’t much like for a weekend, he said. “Two or three days on end, because when they have lockdowns, they don’t get out anywhere.”
The corrections officers Thomas represents nearly came to a strike in January before a last-minute deal averted it. Since then, the minister responsible — Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi — has talked about transforming corrections in Ontario, hiring new guards and probation officers and improving rehabilitation and medical services.
Just standing outside the jail, you can tell how much pride we all take in the place. The correc- tions officers haven’t picketed in weeks but fire barrels full of charred scrap wood sit by the driveway outside the gate, along with pallets and hay bales. A few empty Busch cans litter the parking lot where people wait to pick up inmates, remnants of someone’s little freedom party.
Naqvi has announced that his ministry is training 144 more corrections officers, and about 40 will be assigned to Ottawa. “We will continue to hire many more in the coming months and years to ensure staffing levels grow beyond normal turn-over and retirement, and to ensure that officers are reflective of the diverse communities we serve,” he wrote in an open letter to corrections staff at the end of January.
Thomas figures the Ottawa jail needs 100 more officers all by itself. They’d cost about $7 million a year. Even assuming he’s shooting for the moon, there’s a big gap between that and the province’s plan.
“On a day-to-day basis, this is a very tough place to work. My hat’s off to anybody who comes to work here every day. I worked in a psychiatric hospital my whole life. I’m a (registered practical nurse) by trade, but I wouldn’t work in a jail.”