Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (June 07/02) - The Inuvik female young offenders centre opened last week and the first two prisoners arrived Wednesday.

Facility manager Sharon Gairdner says the facility will be incarcerating young women in the 14-bed facility

"Right now we are bringing our offenders in two at a time over the next week and-a-half," Gairdner said.

"We're expecting to start off with six over the next two weeks."

"From my experience, I don't see us getting busy until September, but that can change too."

The offenders are being transferred from Hay River to the new Inuvik facility.

The $6.1 million centre will offer a full complement of corrections staff trained specifically for the centre.

"We just finished three-and-a-half months of extensive training," Gairdner said.

They have a staff of 12 youth officers, three senior youth officers, a cook, program co-ordinator, case manager, part-time psychologist, part-time nurse and an administration officer.

"The staff are pretty anxious to get going," she said. "We're doing a little in-house training and it's all coming together."

"It's very exciting, because everyone's eager to try out their new skills."