‘It’s as close to home living as we can do’
The new women’s facility at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre (WCC) is set to open this week, giving female inmates an introduction to 21st-century corrections.
Photo by Vince Fedoroff
Top: SPANKING NEW QUARTERS – The Women’s Transitional Living Centre will open soon. The new quarters are a low-security jail, where the residents will do their own cooking and laundry and have access to the outdoors during the day. Bottom: SHARED SPACE – The community living area of the new Women’s Transitional Living Centre is seen Monday afternoon during a media tour of the new facility. Women in the unit will have their own rooms.
The new women’s facility at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre (WCC) is set to open this week, giving female inmates an introduction to 21st-century corrections.
The $1.6 million building is more akin to an upscale college dorm than a jail, but the double barbed wire fence around the perimeter and the glassed-in security booth at the centre of the building both speak to the fact that the people who live here will do so under constant supervision.
“It looks like a house, but it’s not a house,” project manager Peter Bloom said of the just-completed structure which will house the jail’s open custody, minimum-security and some medium-security inmates.
Up to nine women will live in the seven-bedroom facility. They will share two bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room and laundry facilities.
The women will be responsible for their own cooking and cleaning, and they will have keys to their rooms. The front door to the building will be open during the day and the women will be allowed to go in and out as they please. The fence will prevent them from leaving the grounds.
“It’s as close to home living as we can do,” assistant deputy minister of Justice Bob Riches said while showing the building to reporters Monday afternoon.
“Women tend to need more personal space,” Riches said of the need for private rooms. He said that in his experience, conflicts among female inmates generally arise from a lack of privacy and alone time.
Currently, women at the jail are held in a single dorm which houses up to 16 women at a time, though built for 10 women “at the most,” according to Riches.
Women in the dorm rarely get to go outside as the men do, and they are kept in their dorm almost all the time, largely because they have to be kept apart from the male population.
The Yukon has one of the few mixed-gender jails in the country, Riches pointed out, and has to deal with the obstacles that come with keeping the two groups separate.
Before this annex was built, women were getting the short end of the stick. This is reflected in the fact that until recently, female offenders were often given double credit for time served at WCC because of the cramped quarters and restricted access to programming.
“It’s something that’s been needed in Yukon corrections for a long time,” Riches said of the new facility.
“Corrections doesn’t have to be oppressive to work,” he said when asked to justify giving convicts such comfortable living arrangements, which include a TV in every room and heated floors.
“It’s really about providing an environment where there’s an opportunity to change.”
Riches said he hopes the new facility will attract more people who can provide training and counselling programs for the women and will provide a much more welcoming environment for visiting family members.
Staying in contact with the outside world is an important part of rehabilitation, he said, as is caring for one’s own daily needs while in jail.
Women will be considered for the facility on a person-by-person basis, Riches said, and only low- and medium-security prisoners will be allowed to live in the building.
Women charged or accused of violent crimes or who pose a serious flight risk will be kept in the main jail, he said, but added: “A good majority of women (at WCC) don’t need to be in a secure environment.”
Women who remain in the old dorm will also benefit from the switch, Riches pointed out.
For one, they will have an incentive to behave well, follow the rules and participate in education and rehabilitation programs; and they will simply have more room. Some of the bunks in the dorm will be replaced
by exercise equipment, he said.
“Inmates see something like this as an opportunity,” Riches said. “... Jail has to be about opportunities; it can’t just be about locks and guards.”
Joleene Murphy
Nov 17, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I think finally having a seperate facility for women is a good thing, the opportunity for programming and education is key in rehabillitation, however a TV in everyroom is a little much dont ya think? You do the crime, you do the time may have just turned into you do the crime then have 5 star accomodation for the cold winter! I would much rather see my taxpayer dollars be used to feed the homeless than buy each crimanal a tv.