View From the Legislature

New questions were raised last week in the Manitoba Legislature as to just what exactly is happening in Manitoba Jails.

Following revelations that high security inmates at Milner Ridge Correctional Centre were able to access pornographic material as a result of a problem with the satellite television, I received an email from a former prisoner of Dauphin Correctional Centre (DCC) with more disturbing details of problems there. Last October, inmates were able to rent pay-per-view movies, including pornographic ones, and even rented and watched a pay-per-view Ultimate Fighting Championship match. These were all paid for by the taxpayers. The NDP Minister of Justice did confirm that in fact this had happened in October of last year at DCC.

While these revelations are concerning enough, they are really just a symptom of a larger problem. What is happening in our jails in Manitoba is doing little to change the lives or the behavior of inmates when they leave jail. In fact, on average 80% of individuals leaving our adult and youth correction centres are recharged with a new offence within two years of their release. And it is hardly a wonder. Currently most inmates spend the majority of time playing cards, watching television and basically waiting for their sentence to end. Opportunities to deal with issues around addiction or even basic education and life skills are few.

Crowded jails have resulted in very little space for these programs to operate even if they were offered in a robust fashion. For the staff at these correctional facilities, who work extremely hard every day and have to deal with a very difficult work environment, this presents challenges around work safety.

The NDP government has done little to address the re-offense rate over the past decade, in fact it has only gotten worse. While we need to ensure that those who are a danger to our community are off of our streets and in secure facilities, doing time shouldn’t be wasted time. It is a unique opportunity to ensure that when individuals are released, and everyone who is serving time in a provincial institution will be released, they do not simply go back into our community and commit another crime.

And there are other areas which have been working hard to reduce the re-offense rate among prisoners. Saskatchewan for example has had great success in reducing the re-offense rate among prisoners who take part in special addiction treatment in a dedicated unit of a jail in Regina. Saskatchewan has also had, for many years, an urban camp in Saskatoon that has inmates participate in cleaning up public grounds in the spring and doing other community labour. The Manitoba NDP do not, for some reason, believe that these programs would work in Manitoba and so individuals who leave our jails keep on reoffending at a rate of 80%.

No doubt many Manitobans were surprised to learn that some prisoners in the province have been able to access pornography while doing their time in our jails. It is a symptom of a much larger problem.