Assaults by inmates show no sign of easing

Ontario corrections officers seek provincial funding to reduce risk

LONDON, ONT. Violence in Ontario jails, including London’s embattled Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC), shows no signs of easing up, the latest provincial figures show.

The numbers suggest Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives, who swept to power last summer after 15 years of Liberal rule, have a lot of work ahead to fix the province’s correctional system.

The number of inmate-on-inmate and inmate- on- staff assaults hit new highs in 2017, and inmate-on-inmate assaults were on pace through the first six months of 2018 to at least match those highs by year-end, according to figures obtained by Postmedia News from the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Service.

The number of assaults on staff by inmates through the first six months of 2018 was unavailable. The 2017 numbers show large increases in violence from the year before. Reported cases of inmate-on-inmate assaults rose by 24 per cent from 2016 to 2017. Reported cases of inmate assaults on staff increased by 61 per cent over the same period. Correctional officers say they aren’t holding out hope much will change under Doug Ford’s new government, focused as it is on saving money.

“The Ford government likes to say it’s all about law and order. If that is the case, you need to put some money into it,” said Chris Jackel, an officer at Central North Correctional Centre in Penetanguishene and co-chair of a joint employee relations committee for the government and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. Instead, he said he’s seeing cuts at some institutions.

Asked if the new government is listening to correctional staff as it tries to improve jails, Jackel replied, “Short answer, no.” What’s making matters worse, said a correctional officer at EMDC in London, is the nature of the recent assaults.

“The seriousness of the assaults is major,” he said, asking that his name not be used. “A staff member is going to be killed in provincial corrections.”

It’s too early to tell if the new government will have an impact on the rising violence. The PCs were elected last June. The final report on violence inside Ontario jails from Howard Sapers, the independent adviser on corrections hired by the Liberals, was released in December.

“The ministry is reviewing the recommendations from the independent adviser on corrections and determining how best to address them, with input from frontline staff,” Community Safety and Correctional Services spokesman Andrew Morrison wrote in an email.

The ministry is also reviewing existing defensive tactics and the use-of-force model for correctional officers, and reviewing training on de-escalation and human rights, Morrison said.

At the same time, the ministry has a pilot project that has put shield devices in some facilities to go in front of cell door hatches that inmates have used to assault staff, Morrison said.

Both Jackel and the EMDC officer say the province has handcuffed staff by making it more difficult to discipline inmates.

A key tool to deter poor behaviour was the threat of segregation, but its practice is limited by the province, Jackel said. “It worked. There was a whole core of the inmate population that feared going to segregation.”

Five years ago, correctional staff and inmates were struggling with violence because jails were understaffed and overcrowded, the EMDC officer said. “Putting five in a cell, lockdowns for weeks without showers due to understaffing — that (put) staff in harm’s way. Inmates can only be treated that way till a breaking point,” he said.

That needed to change, but the pendulum has swung too far the other way, the veteran officer said. “Inmates now run the jail. They do not listen to any direction, and our management is OK with that because then the inmates will have nothing to complain about,” he said.

Provincial statistics back up the EMDC officer’s contention that violence had been high and then eased off until rising again. The number of inmate-on-inmate assaults across the province reached 3,151 in 2012, just as the crisis of jail overcrowding and under-staffing peaked. That number then dropped, but has been trending up, reaching 4,028 in 2017. Provincewide, the number of reported inmate-on-staff assaults has gone up and down over the past six years, but 2016 and 2017 showed record-high numbers. Some of the increase may be due to correctional officers’ determination to make the public and politicians recognize the dangers staff face. But correctional officers say the increases reflect more the addiction, mental illness and gang mentality that afflict in- mates in greater numbers than ever. Reported incidents include threats and physical assaults, including spitting and the throwing of feces.