Yellowknife (Feb 28/03) - The new jail being built in Yellowknife is either a much- needed improvement, or a costly headache depending who you talk to.

"This is a territorial facility," said Range Lake MLA Sandy Lee last week.

She was annoyed when some members complained Yellowknife seemed to be getting too much money for capital projects in the 2003-2004 budget.

"It has nothing to do with capital funding for Yellowknife."

She says many MLAs don't understand this when they criticize money going into projects happening in Yellowknife.

"They see this big building going up, and they think 'There's your capital money.' But we're saying 'No. We need our schools, our arena, our roads.'"

Lee would not discuss whether the new adult jail being built for $49.5 million was over-budget or not at this point.

But she said, "We need to have that jail. Territorially speaking, because it's really old and run down."

Doug Friesen, correctional services director at the Department of Justice, admitted there have been "concerns" about the new adult jail costing more that its reported $49.5 million price tag. But the project is currently on track, he said, and scheduled for completion in March 2004.

It is part of a two-phase project that includes the young offenders facility just completed in January and holds up to 25 youths.

The new adult jail will be able to hold 152 minimum to maximum security inmates. The current one, to be demolished, holds 132.

But size is not everything, Friesen said. The new jail will be more spacious and more focused on healing and rehabilitation.

GNWT can take "dubious"credit for jails

In a report read in the house by Yellowknife South MLA Brendan Bell last week, a GNWT committee on social programs said the 14th assembly can only take "dubious" credit for replacement of jails in the NWT.

"It is unfortunate that a significant portion of funding available for capital infrastructure during the life of this assembly had to be expended on replacing aging correction facilities," the report says.

The committee concluded the new Yellowknife Correctional Facility is so expensive to erect because of the heavy inclusion of rehabilitation programs for offenders contained in the walls.

While this was a laudable goal, the committee said, "it is equally important to provide programming and services that keep people from coming into contact with the criminal justice system in the first place."

Justice Minister Roger Allen does not make any apologies for the new adult jail.

He said cost-wise it is on target. And the fresh design and beefed-up counselling services will help inmates integrate better back into society.

"When you're an inmate," he said softly, sitting in his office Tuesday, "there's a social stigma. It becomes a sociological issue."

New jail will support itself

In time, the new jail will even generate revenue and become self-supporting, Allen said, by housing inmates from Nunavut and Alberta whose governments must pay a fee in order to use the jail.

But MLAs are not convinced. Last week, North Slave MLA Leon Lafferty stood in the house and said the GNWT should think more about prevention than building jails.

Directing his questions to Social Services Minister Michael Miltenberger about child protection and the flawed child welfare system, Lafferty blasted plans for a new jail in Yellowknife, saying the government doesn't have its priorities straight.

"It's time to do prevention instead of building multi-million dollar jails and young offender facilities," said Lafferty, who also expressed dismay at the rising cost of the facility, which was originally estimated at $30 million.

"We should be doing prevention at the front line and putting facilities in the front instead of at the back end.

"This government is working backwards as far as I'm concerned."

Ronald Hunter, president of the John Howard Society in Yellowknife, said he has heard the arguments for and against the jails.

He said he doesn't know if the new adult facility is going to be over-budget. But he says he knows one thing: spending on incarceration and building newer jails far exceeds that for programs and services to make people better citizens and keep them out of jail.

"You can't identify dollars for prevention," Hunter said, speaking of the GNWT's budget "but you can certainly identify them for the jail."