Canadian prison cells by the numbers

[styky]

Canadian prison cells by the numbers
By Andy Pinsent, CBC News
Posted: Apr 20, 2012 4:10 PM ET
Last Updated: Apr 20, 2012 4:57 PM ET

With the announcement on April 19, 2012, of the closure of Kingston Penitentiary, its regional treatment centre and Leclerc Instituition in Quebec, questions have arisen regarding overcrowding in Canada's prisons.

The federal government is hoping 2,700 beds will be ready by the time the three institutions are officially decommissioned in two years.

Here's a look at current space in Canada's prisons.

15,000 — Approximate number of beds operated in 57 sites by Correctional Services Canada, including various security levels: minimum, medium, maximum, as well as regional psychiatric centres for acutely mentally ill offenders

14,600 — Approximate number of beds currently in use

2,700 — Number of beds the federal government plans to build over the next three years

1,000 — Number of beds the federal government plans to decommission over the next two years

10% — Rate of double-bunking that is allowed as a result of overcrowding

15% — Current rate of double-bunking across Canada

5 square metres — Minimum size of cell acceptable for double-bunking

7 square metres — Minimum cell size standard for single occupancy for new and replacement accommodation with a toilet and wash basin

6.5 square metres — Minimum cell size standard for single occupancy for new and replacement accommodation for cells without a toilet and wash basin

500 — Maximum number of prisoners allowed in maximum and multi-level security prisons

600 — Maximum number of prisoners allowed in medium level security prisons

250 — Maximum number of prisoners allowed in minimum security prisons

150 — maximum number of prisoners allowed in women’s regional prisons.

2 — maximum number of inmates allowed in a cell.

Double-bunking is not allowed for:

*Segregation cells
*Cells used for psychiatric care or mental health care (except where authorized as part of a treatment program)
*Cells smaller than five square metres
*Cells with no direct or indirect natural light
*Cells designated and occupied by handicapped inmates except in shared accommodation
*Cells for suicide watch (observation) unless authorized on an individual basis by the attending therapist or physician
Source: Office of the Correctional Investigator
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/201 ... mbers.html

[styky]

Jeffrey Simpson
‘Time and punishment’ now Canada’s way
JEFFREY SIMPSON | Columnist profile | E-mail
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, May. 18, 2012 2:00AM EDT

Any week now, we might expect the Correctional Service of Canada to be renamed Punishment Canada.

Corrections – the idea that those in prison might be assisted while incarcerated to be better prepared for life outside jail – is apparently foreign to the Harper government. Instead, it wants to put more people away for longer, then, figuratively speaking, throw away the key. Punishment is in; correction is out.

Just when you think this government’s criminal justice policies, which have been almost universally denounced by experts in the field, can’t get worse, they do.

So it was recently when Public Safety Minister Vic Toews rolled out more mean-spirited, politically motivated and predictably counterproductive policies to make life harder for those in prison.......................http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opi ... le2436127/

[styky]

Canadian criminals have an easy time

What happens to those who are found guilty but not incarcerated?

lorne gunter
By Lorne Gunter ,QMI Agency

First posted: Sunday, July 01, 2012 07:21 PM EDT
Very few Canadian criminals ever serve time in jail.

Career criminals have figured this out, of course, and know there are few consequences for their stealing, robbing and assaulting.

In 2011, Statistics Canada reports there were 353,000 criminal cases in this country.

Of those, 64% (226,000) resulted in guilty verdicts or pleas.

Thirty-two percent (113,000) were withdrawn by Crown prosecutors or stayed — put on hold — typically for lack of evidence or because the accused agreed to take counselling or make restitution.

Just 3% (11,000) of criminal cases ended in acquittals.

“The proportion of guilty findings was highest in Prince Edward Island (80%) and lowest in Ontario (56%),” according to the nation’s number-crunchers. Alberta was bang on the national rate of 64%.

In cases involving violent crimes, the conviction rate is even lower.............http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/29/ca ... -easy-time

[styky]

Killers' jailhouse babies in custody battle
By Tom Godfrey, QMI Agency
TORONTO -- Convicted child killer Amina Chaudary gave birth to three kids in jail and left them for others to raise as she enjoyed prison perks, obtaining two university degrees, a hairdressing licence and a nose job. ....................http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2012/ ... 42761.html

[styky]

Shawn Lamb: Where does the buck stop in Manitoba Justice?

After having a couple of days now to be immersed in the information on suspected city serial murderer Shawn Cameron Lamb, there’s still so many more questions than answers.

And it’s not the usual questions eating away at me.

For me, and I admit it’s really gotten under my skin, the number one thing that’s been eating away at my mind is:

Why was Lamb free prior to the full expiry of his 19-month jail sentence (from May 26, 2010).

He served only 13 of the months despite his horrendous record.

But more importantly:

Why was a provincial judge’s order regarding how Lamb’s sentence should be served either totally ignored or at least countermanded by Manitoba Corrections?

It’s a little convoluted, but please bear with me – the context is uber-important................http://blogs.canoe.ca/crimescene/genera ... justice-2/

[styky]

Double-bunking in crowded prison cells is not a problem for Toews

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
The Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Jul. 11 2012, 1:56 PM EDT
Last updated Wednesday, Jul. 11 2012, 9:17 PM EDT
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews says he has no problem with the number of federal inmates sharing cells built for one.

And even as he reiterated his commitment to building 2,700 new cells in existing prison facilities, he said those additional units aren’t meant to alleviate the pressures caused by double-bunking – because there’s no need.

“We won’t make any changes on the double-bunking policy. Double-bunking is appropriate. All Western democracies use double-bunking, dual accommodation, in appropriate cells,” he told The Globe and Mail in an interview. “And we will continue to do that.”

Mr. Toews used a Winnipeg press conference Wednesday to underscore that the increase in inmate population isn’t nearly as high as Corrections Canada projected. The Tackling Violence Crime and Truth in Sentencing acts were expected to result in 3,600 more inmates into the penal system by March of 2013; increases so far are closer to one-third that...................http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... le4406611/

[styky]

Tories' crime legislation not ballooning prison costs: Toews

By: Larry Kusch

Posted: 2:06 PM | Comments: 107 (including replies) | Last Modified: 6:34 PM | Updates
The federal corrections service will not be swamped with prisoners or forced to build new prisons because of the Harper government’s tough-on-crime legislation, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said today.

The Correctional Service of Canada overestimated the number of prisoners that would result from new crime legislation two years ago, he maintained.

It had forecast the federal prison population would swell to 17,725 by June.

But the actual count was far below that, Toews told a Winnipeg news conference. He said the number was 14,965.

Toews said a budgeted $1.48 billion in additional costs over seven years is not materializing. He said the money is being recouped.

Manitoba’s senior minister lashed out at opposition critics who, he said, had predicted $19 billion in extra capital costs and an additional $3 billion in operating costs to the prison system because of tougher crime laws.

He said the facts don’t bear out these claims.

Keeping repeat serious offenders in jail longer has reduced recidivism and kept costs manageable, Toews said.

That means the government will save $1.5 billion over the next seven years by foregoing capital spending requested by the department, Toews said.

The NDP dismissed Toews' comments as premature. They pointed out many of the anti-crime measures were only approved by Parliament this spring.

"They just got royal assent, so we still have to wait for the increase in the (prison) population. We're going to have to wait a few years and we're going to see it," Rosane Dore Lefebvre, the NDP's deputy critic of public safety, said from Ottawa.

"People are going to stay longer in the prisons with those bills and you're going to have more and more.

Some provincial governments are also concerned. Ontario and Quebec, among others, have said the number of inmates in jails, which are provincially run, could increase and drive up costs.

Manitoba has already seen its adult jail population jump to 2,415 from 1,678 since 2008. It has expanded capacity at a women's jail west of Winnipeg and will enlarge jails in Milner Ridge and The Pas later this year.

While the federal prison population this year is lower than expected, officials point out the number of people behind bars is still growing.

Howard Sapers, who fields complaints from federal inmates as his job as Canada's correctional investigator, has said some 1,000 extra inmates have been added to the system in recent years.

The government has already promised to add 2,700 new beds to existing facilities to ease over-crowding.

— with files from The Canadian Press
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/ ... 04145.html

[styky]

Canada Studying Private Firms for Prisons as Budgets Fall
By Andrew Mayeda - Jul 10, 2012 2:06 PM CT
Canada is studying the use of private companies to deliver some prison services as it cuts spending and imposes tougher sentences on criminals, which may benefit companies like GEO Group Inc. (GEO) ..................http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-1 ... -fall.html

[RedDog]

Room sharing is now a humanitarian hardship? These same individuals were 10 and 12 to a bunkhouse room at scout camp. NHL hockey players and other professional athletes double up rooming on road trips. Seniors are often FOUR to a room in medical facilities.

Cry me a river convicts.

[styky]

Prison population not rising despite critics’ predictions on Tories’ tough-on-crime laws: Vic Toews

Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press Jul 12, 2012 – 12:56 AM ET | Last Updated: Jul 12, 2012 1:07 AM ET
WINNIPEG — Canada’s prison population has not exploded, contrary to opposition critics’ dire predictions about the government’s anti-crime laws, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said Wednesday.

The number of inmates in federal prisons as of June 30 stood at 14,965, Toews said, almost 3,000 below the level predicted for this year in 2009 by the Corrections Service of Canada and far below what the opposition in Parliament has been warning.

“The influx of new inmates has simply not materialized,” Toews said in Winnipeg.

“Contrary to predictions by our critics and the opposition, we have not seen the so-called substantive increase in offenders swamping the correctional system and creating untold new costs.”.....................http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/12 ... vic-toews/

[Alec Bachlow]

The question that should be addressed is- If a human being is living in an incorrect manner- who is an irritation- generally troublesome- lowers the quality of life for others......is a persistent threat to population.....Can that pest be trained and educated to be correct?

Are there people who are to stupid to learn...or too arrogant and full of unwarranted pride....that are hopeless social write offs- who can not be positively altered?

Watching in a Brampton court room. A judge dealt with two black offenders. One was the classic project raised young man...The other was an immigrant for Africa. The African had found weakness in the banking system....He managed to steal a few hundred thousand from a few different banks...He took flights to different provinces and was highly organized. He thought he was going to walk because he managed to pay back most of the money. Problem was he had done this before...and the courts were kind....He had a very surprised look on his face when he got 18 months...The idiot thought our system was stupid....cos' they showed him mercy and grace. It was a fair sentence.


In the alternative- The project black was a pimp- who robbed a hooker and rang her neck in the process. The judge told him not to hang out at that particular motel ....and sent the throat squeezing weasel on his way.
Point being- Old British property law still dictates that if you touch my STUFF- I will lock you up....but if a gang banger has a gun for killing other blacks- they get bail- and continue.

I mentioned that the bank fraud case had a fair outcome....BUT- the big goof that beats the crap out of a hooker...should have got a couple of years- I don't care if it is some dumb black girl of little social relevance- People must become more important than money...As for the African fraud master...I would have taken him aside privately and told him- You pay all the money back...and you can go home- Gave the geek 2 months to raise the cash with a penalty of 5 years if he was late.

Judges have to become brave and deal with criminals personally...more in chamber time would be nice- If you are going to run a judicial system like a mafia- You had better act like a godfather rather than a wimpy bureaucrat that takes the tunnel to get to his car and is afraid to walk the halls of justice.

[styky]

Natives hurt more by prison crowding

By: Jenny Ford

Posted: 1:00 AM | Comments: 35



Manitoba aboriginals are the hardest hit due to the overcrowding at federal prisons on the Prairies, Canada's correctional investigator says.

From 2010 to 2011, the number of federal inmates jumped by 1,000 -- with 51 per cent of that increase in the Prairie region -- and 43 per cent of those were aboriginal offenders.

"There's been a very disproportionate increase across the Prairies," said Howard Sapers, correctional investigator of Canada. "There is an impact that has been felt in Manitoba."

At the Stony Mountain Institution, the inmate population increased by almost 100 -- to 607 in 2012 from 511 in 2009.

At Rockwood Institution, a minimum-security prison, the population jumped to 146 from 94 during the same period.

Double-bunking also increased 33 per cent last year in the Prairies. Currently, 27 per cent of inmates in the Prairies are double-bunked, compared with 18 per cent in the rest of the country.

New laws in the last two years have put aboriginal people at a disadvantage in the prison system, said John Hutton, executive director of the John Howard Society of Manitoba.

"Overcrowding in Manitoba jails is going to become much worse," he said. "It's making people who are already facing charges stay longer, making it harder to get parole and harder to get out."

Laws resulting in a reduction in the number of conditional sentences and new mandatory minimum sentences have had a greater effect on those who are socially disadvantaged, Hutton said.

"When our prisons are overcrowded the difficulty is that affects corrections to do effective programs and do rehabilitation," Hutton added.

In provincial correctional centres, there's still a bed crunch. It's 850 beds short for roughly 2,500 inmates, a number that has jumped by 500 inmates in the last two years. That being said, more than 130 beds have been added since August 2011.

On Tuesday, Manitoba chiefs brought to light policing and jail concerns in the northern First Nation of Northlands Denesuline in Lac Brochet, where detainees were chained to the concrete floor of a hockey arena because they didn't have access to RCMP jail cells.

With the introduction of Bill C-10, the new omnibus crime bill, mandatory minimum sentences for offences such as drug trafficking will have a disproportional impact on aboriginal people, further spiking prison numbers, Hutton said.

Manitoba Justice Minister Andrew Swan said the province is working to add more beds, including 200 this year.

"The building of additional capacity is something under active consideration," Swan said in a statement to the Free Press.

"We, along with other provinces, have raised the need for collaboration with the federal government on the implementation of Bill C-10 and... as the federal government rolls out the changes they are mindful of the need for more operational and financial resources."

The federal government said it's working to enhance rehabilitation and crime prevention for aboriginals.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 14, 2012 A10

[RedDog]

A way to avoid prison accommodation issues or prison crowding is to avoid ever going there. They, the CBC, the Globe, et al are of the impression the public gives a sh*t. We don't. Many of us would have them in tents in the arctic - which seem good enough for the military.

That was .

[styky]

Twilight novel among inmate purchases offering rare glimpse into life behind bars

Tobi Cohen, Postmedia News | Sep 14, 2012 3:35 PM ET | Last Updated: Sep 14, 2012 5:17 PM ET
OTTAWA — Somewhere inside Kingston Penitentiary, there’s an inmate taking dating advice from Jennifer Love Hewitt’s book The Day I Shot Cupid, while another prisoner brushes up on the history of the Harper Conservatives’ rise to power.

At least seven convicts at British Columbia’s Kent Institution sported brand new sneakers this past spring, and an inmate at Atlantic Institution ordered a 20-piece hair cutting kit.

Meanwhile, Killing Music and In Cold Blood are some of the album and video-game titles that convicts at Quebec’s Port-Cartier Institution are listening to and watching.

At Saskatchewan Penitentiary, some inmates have figured out how to avoid that whole, ahem, dropping-the-soap-in-the-shower problem: they’re stocking up on Axe and Dove for Men brand body wash.

Contained in more than 1,000 pages of documents obtained by Postmedia News is a glimpse into some of the personal items available to Canada’s worst offenders now residing in maximum-security institutions. The records were obtained under the access to information regime.

The documents list items inmates across the country purchased with money from their own accounts last April, a month before Public Safety Minister Vic Toews announced he was going to streamline and standardize the purchase of inmate goods from outside suppliers.

He said the plan would save taxpayers $1.048-million a year and put an end to the haphazard way in which corrections staff were sometimes being sent out on inmate shopping trips.

“Our Government is committed to keeping our streets and communities safe. All too often, victims have told us they feel the criminals have all the rights,” Toews said at the time.

“We’ve listened and since taking office our government has been working hard to restore balance to our criminal justice system.”

Toews called for the creation of a set shopping schedule, an established list of suppliers and greater use of catalogue shopping.

He also eliminated incentive pay for inmates taking part in prison work programs, increased the amount they’re charged for room and board and downloaded administrative costs related to the inmate telephone system to offenders.......................http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/09/14 ... hind-bars/

[styky]

Feds studying private prisons as way to save money

Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife and Field Producer Philip Ling, CTV News
Published Friday, Sep. 21, 2012 10:02PM EDT
Last Updated Friday, Sep. 21, 2012 10:07PM EDT

OTTAWA -- The Harper government has been quietly studying private prisons in other countries as possible model to save money in federal penitentiaries, CTV News has learned.

The government hired the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche to examine prisons in seven countries aimed at building “understanding of various models, approaches and experiences,” according the 1,400-page report obtained by CTV News under the Access to Information Act.

The massive report was kept secret from Canada’s Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers who expressed concerns about for-profit prisons in Canada.

“This study comes as a surprise. I wasn’t aware they had commissioned a study.” Sapers said. “I’m always concerned when corrections is treated just like another business.”

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/feds-stu ... z27A9CNKqd