MILLHAVEN PENITENTIARY–Alec Murdoch, a guard and admissions officer at this maximum-security prison, has seen his share of tough guys break down when they enter what he calls "the big house."
"I've been actually fingerprinting people here and they're crying on my shoulder. Or you can see that they're nervous and their hands are shaking," says Murdoch, standing in front of the wire-meshed holding cells where new inmates wait to be processed.
"You've got to realize that they might be the tough kid on the street, but here, we have 525 tough kids," he adds.
Sprawled in a spoked-wheel design behind a double, razor wire perimeter fence, Millhaven Institution near Kingston is nothing if not intimidating. A 37-year history marked by infamous riots, notorious prisoners and tough guards has forged a reputation that confronts all Ontario criminals sentenced to federal prisons.
The penitentiary has a dual role: It holds up to 150 dangerous criminals in its maximum-security J-unit and acts as a way station where all criminals sentenced to more than two years are assessed, given a rehabilitation plan and then shipped to high, medium or minimum security prisons.
Last year, 1,300 prisoners were assessed at Millhaven, some held for months in U-unit, waiting for a spot to open in their assigned penitentiary. The changing profile of these prisoners is one reason observers believe the state of Canada's prison system is getting worse.
Crowded maximum- and medium-security facilities are holding inmates who are more violent, more addicted to drugs and more likely to suffer from mental illness than in the past. Yet fewer are getting the rehabilitation programs they need.
"Some of them leave more violent and more addicted to drugs than when they walked in the place," says Jason Godin, Ontario president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. "That's pretty scary for the Canadian public."
Recidivism rates, perhaps the best measure of the prison system's effectiveness, show at least 40 per cent of inmates are convicted of a new offence within two years of leaving jail.
The Conservative government is considering a major reform of the system, but hasn't announced its plans. What it has done is push through new "tough on crime" legislation most criminal justice experts warn will further strain the prison system without reducing crime.
The Tackling Violent Crime Act increases the number of gun-related crimes that automatically result in mandatory minimum sentences, increases the jail time to be served for those crimes and designates as a dangerous offender anyone convicted of three violent or sexual offences, jailing them for as long as they're considered to be an unacceptable risk to society.
Legislative committees studying incarnations of the act repeatedly heard experts comparing these provisions to U.S. laws that resulted in spiralling costs and rates of incarceration, with little impact on crime.
Officials at Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) acknowledge the changes will increase costs and further crowd prisons. But they say some of the cost estimates are considered secret cabinet documents and can't be made public.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has said the tougher sentences will cost an extra $240 million over five years, adding 300 to 400 inmates in federal prisons and 3,600 more in provincial jails.
Anthony Doob, a criminologist at the University of Toronto, told a legislative committee the changes would put a further 1,000 offenders in prison each year and cost an extra $80 million annually. Many more will also be imprisoned, criminal justice experts say, by another batch of mandatory minimum sentences proposed in a bill targeting drug possession and trafficking.
At the end of the 2006-07 fiscal year, CSC had 13,200 offenders in its 58 penitentiaries and was supervising another 8,400 in communities. Whether the system can effectively handle the extra load raises some doubts.
"The system is struggling to keep its head above water. They've been treading water for a long time and they're running out of energy," says ombudsman Howard Sapers, the federally appointed correctional investigator, who acts as an ombudsman for inmates.
Godin says the government faces a choice: Double-bunk more prisoners – a recipe for increased tension – or build more prisons.
"There's no room at the inn," he says, adding that dangerous criminals are already being placed in medium-security jails because maximum facilities are full.
Recent prison riots in Agassiz, B.C., Edmonton and Joyceville, Ont., are the latest manifestations of a prison population that's harder to manage.
Fifteen per cent of offenders are classified on admission as maximum-security inmates – a 100 per cent increase in recent years. One of every six offenders is linked to gangs or organized crime; four of every five arrive with serious drug or alcohol abuse problems; 12 per cent of men and 26 per cent of women suffer from serious mental health problems.
Assaults against prison guards are on the rise and drugs flow freely, smuggled in by visitors or thrown over perimeter fences or walls.
"Tennis balls are wonderful: You just cut a hole in them, stick the drugs in and throw them over," Godin says. "In one institution, we saw arrows, believe it or not, from several hundred feet away being fired into the yard with drugs attached to them."
Says Rob Sampson, head of a federally appointed panel that reviewed the prison system and reported in December: "People who read our report say they just can't believe that it's probably easier to get drugs inside of jail than it is outside. It doesn't make any sense."
Sampson's report, "A Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety," made 109 recommendations. They include building massive prison compounds that have maximum-, medium- and minimum-security facilities within the same perimeter walls, replacing the mandatory release of prisoners after two-thirds of their sentence with a system of "earned parole," and enhancing rehabilitation programs.
The Conservative government gave its first official response in the February budget. The government gave CSC an extra $122 million "to ensure that the federal correctional system is firmly on track to respond comprehensively" to Sampson's recommendations.
The new money is targeted to improve prison security. What's unclear is how many of the report's recommendations will be adopted.
There's much concern about the cost of the proposed prison compounds – up to $750 million each, according to the report's estimates. Yet Sampson, former Ontario corrections minister in the Mike Harris government, describes them as almost a prerequisite for reform, providing the space needed to improve security and rehabilitation.
The Conservative government has already said it's committed to abolishing statutory release, whereby prisoners are automatically released after serving two-thirds of their sentence. The John Howard Society of Canada, which helps offenders reintegrate into communities, estimates this will boost the inmate population by 2,310 people in the first year alone.
Where there's full agreement is on the need for more rehabilitation programs. Twenty studies recently reviewed by CSC all found that recidivism rates were significantly lower for prisoners who took rehab compared with those who didn't – as much as an 86 per cent reduction in violent recidivism for one group that completed an anger management program.
Rehabilitation is half of the correctional service's dual mandate. The other is the humane custody of prisoners. Yet only about 2 per cent of the service's $1.8 billion budget – $37 million – went to the delivery last year of core rehabilitation programs, such as anger management. (A further $68 million was spent on employment and education programs). And, the number of inmates enrolled in rehab has dropped 16 per cent, partly due to "limited resources," according to Ross Toller, assistant commissioner of corrections.
Says Greg Rogers, head of the John Howard Society of Toronto: "The politicians get tough on crime, the public supports that, but nobody wants to see an increase in their taxes so that prisoners receive better services while in prison.
"Hence, something's got to go, and the something that goes is a lot of the programming that was developed and was quite successful in the '70s and '80s."
Long waiting lists also make accessing programs difficult. Sapers blames a dearth of personnel to deliver the programs, overcrowding, and the "inability" of prison officials to move medium-security inmates progressing in the programs to minimum-security facilities, where space is available.
The wait for rehab is especially problematic when 60 per cent of inmates are serving sentences of less than three years. By the time a spot opens up, many realize they won't complete them in time for parole, so they either don't bother, or waive their right to a parole hearing.
Since 1998 the number of inmates taking a pass on parole hearings has increased 29 per cent, according to a National Parole Board report last year. Obligatory releases after serving two-thirds of a sentence accounted for fully 65 per cent of prison releases last year. Only 30 per cent were released on parole, which gives some indication of the number that satisfied their rehab and correctional programs. The figures are especially troubling because the rate of violent re-offending is three times higher for statutory releases than for parole releases.
CSC officials insist that a large majority of inmates end up in some kind of programming. But non-completion rates are high – 37 per cent for sex offender programs last year, 69 per cent for educational programs and more than 70 per cent for programs designed for women or aboriginal offenders.
"Our main concern is that people are leaving after serving their sentence or pieces of their sentence with not much more than they had when they came, in terms of an ability to become a law-abiding citizen," Sampson says.
Millhaven warden Bruce Somers acknowledges that the greater number of offenders serving shorter sentences, coupled with the bottleneck for rehabilitation programs, "slowed down some of the (prison) releases" in Ontario. Some inmates would have served less time – and cost less to incarcerate – "if we had responded earlier to their programming needs," he adds.
Corrections officials recognized the problem and last year got Millhaven to start providing rehab programs to inmates sentenced to less than four years, who have been assessed and are waiting for cells to open up in other prisons. On May 23, 330 prisoners were in Millhaven waiting to be shipped out.
Somers says he joined the correctional service 25 years ago "with the firm conviction that I can change people's (criminal) behaviour." Millhaven remains a potentially dangerous place – inmates are increasingly members of Toronto street gangs and makeshift weapons, from toothbrushes studded with razor blades to food trays moulded to a deadly point in microwaves, are a constant workplace hazard. Still, Somers insists Millhaven experienced far fewer "lockdowns" during the past three years and maximum-security inmates are getting the programs they need.
Asked if more money should be spent on prevention programs, rather than incarceration, Somers replies he would rather stay clear of politically charged issues. "I'm going to tell you that if we could do more preventative things on the outside, by all means," he says. "If there are fewer inmates coming into these places, I'll be happy."
PRISON FACTS
13,200
Number of federal offenders in penitentiaries (2006-07)
58
Number of penitentiaries
8,400
Number of federal offenders being supervised in communities
Number of federal offenders in penitentiaries (2006-07)
58
Number of penitentiaries
8,400
Number of federal offenders being supervised in communities
COSTS
$235
Daily cost to hold a man in federal prison (2005-06)
$467
Daily cost to hold a woman in federal prison (2005-06)
$1.8 billion
Correctional Service of Canada annual budget
$37 million
Amount of budget spent on core rehabilitation programs, such as anger management
Daily cost to hold a man in federal prison (2005-06)
$467
Daily cost to hold a woman in federal prison (2005-06)
$1.8 billion
Correctional Service of Canada annual budget
$37 million
Amount of budget spent on core rehabilitation programs, such as anger management
ESCAPEES
114
Number of escapees from federal institutions in 1998-99
37
Number of escapees from federal institutions in 2006-07, all from minimum security
36
Number of escapees recaptured by April 1, 2007
Number of escapees from federal institutions in 1998-99
37
Number of escapees from federal institutions in 2006-07, all from minimum security
36
Number of escapees recaptured by April 1, 2007
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