While the final touches are being put on the modern Whitehorse Correctional Centre, a part of the new building is now open for use.

Starting yesterday, people arrested by the RCMP, who until now had been brought to the detachment's cells on Fourth Avenue, will be held in part of the new correctional centre.

Five cells (four individual and one group) in the jail's new admissions area are currently being used until a new 11-cell block, specifically designed for temporary inmates, is completed in the fall.

The new cell block, known as the police detention unit, is being built following a review of the Yukon police force in 2010.

Just over three years ago, Raymond Silverfox died of pneumonia and sepsis after vomiting for hours in RCMP cells.

The new unit will be manned by Whitehorse correctional staff and managed by the centre, said Bob Riches, the Justice department's assistant deputy minister of community justice and public safety.

It will be staffed by specially-trained correctional officers and medical staff.

Unlike at the detachment's cells, where staff need an RCMP escort to enter a cell, correctional officers have the ability to enter cells on their own.

"Our correctional officers will be able to come, open the cell, go in, be able to rouse someone, be able to put them in a recovery position if necessary,” Riches said.

"Our nurses that are on staff will be able to come over here and speak to them. As a matter of fact, they will come here twice a day, if need be, if there are prisoners here.”

RCMP cells at the detachment are being renovated to create more interview space as well as cells to hold those waiting to be interviewed, Riches said.

Getting prisoners out of the detachment will allow more officers to get back to work on the street, Riches said.

"Containment work is correctional officers' work and policing work is policing work,” he said.

"In the best of both worlds, the police will be out there policing the community, and correctional staff will deal with the people being detained.”

The RCMP are contributing $2.1 million to the construction of the new unit, about half of its total cost. The police will also be paying 30 per cent of the operating and maintenance costs.

The remainder of the new Whitehorse Correctional Centre is expected to be occupied by February.

The new building, which cost about $70 million to construct, nearly doubles the size of the current centre, which opened in 1967.

With a maximum capacity of 190 inmates, the building will have an expected annual operating cost of $7.8 million.