Last year Manitoba Progressive Conservatives learned about a problem that the provincial NDP government has with keeping prisoners in jail. The problem isn’t with judges giving short sentences or prisoners getting out on early probation. Instead, the problem is prisoners keep being accidentally released from Manitoba jails.
In 2010, there were 9 Manitoba prisoners who were accidentally released before their sentence was up. They were simply released from jail by mistake before they were done serving their sentence. In response to this problem, the NDP government committed to examining the accidental prisoner releases, finding out what the problem was and getting it fixed.
Last week, in a Justice committee at the Manitoba Legislature, I had the opportunity to ask the NDP government if things had improved on the issue of accidental prisoner releases. It turns out that not only have things not improved since the NDP made a promise to fix the problem, things have actually gotten worse. In the first four months of 2011, there have already been 5 accidental releases of prisoners from Manitoba jails. In fact, one of the prisoners who was accidentally released this year, is still on the loose.
As a result of this new information and the fact that there are more accidental prisoner releases than ever, the NDP government has again promised to study the problem. Unfortunately, it seems that the more the NDP studies the problem, the worse it gets.
Just as concerning as the accidental releases themselves is the NDP government’s response to them. While they provide, when asked, the number of accidental releases that have occurred, they refuse to provide any detail about the circumstances of the releases other than to say they are usually the result of ‘clerical errors’. No information is provided about how the releases happened, which jail they happened at, or the type of prisoner that was accidentally released.
There is also no public notification of accidental releases, even when prisoners are on the loose for several weeks, as the most recent accidentally released prisoner has been.
It is clear that the NDP government does not have a solution to this problem. It has promised to undertake the second study on accidental releases in the past two years. That in itself is an admission that they really don’t have an answer to the problem and it is likely more accidental releases of prisoners will happen with the possibility that this might put the safety of the public at risk.
The very least the NDP could do, until it shows it has this problem under control, is be transparent with the public and provide information about how accidental releases are happening and which prisoners are involved. Otherwise, it simply appears the NDP are more concerned with protecting their government from public embarrassment than they are with protecting the public.
