Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Feb 01/99) - When workers begin construction of the proposed corrections facility in Inuvik, they will be breaking ground in more ways than one -- the young offenders facility, due to open in 2001, will be the first all-girl centre in Canada.

Young female offenders currently serve their time in the co-ed Dene K'onia facility in Hay River. But John Dillon, director of Correctional Services for the GNWT, said last week that experience and studies have shown female inmates in general stand a better chance for rehabilitation and reintegration into society when they are held separately from male inmates. He cited a federal publication titled "Creative Choices."

"If we add women to a male facility, they are additions to it but never become part of it," said Dillon. "They need a separate atmosphere where they can change and grow."

Arlene Hache, executive director of the Yellowknife Women's Centre, agreed. She said the last time men and women shared the Yellowknife Correctional Centre in the late 1980s there was a scandal involving an accusation of rape and that, in general, men and women received unequal treatment.

"Women were treated much more punitively than males, so it didn't work out well," she said.

With the YCC, the Baffin Correctional Centre, the South MacKenzie Correctional Centre for men and the Territorial Women's Correctional Centre in Fort Smith for women, the only time the adult offenders are held in co-ed facilities, like the Yellowknife RCMP detachment headquarters, is when they are serving sentences of less than 10 days. They also share when they are serving intermittent sentences on weekends or when they're in remand to appear in court or await transfer. Even then, men can be held in remand at YCC.

But in these cases, offenders do not receive the same access to programs granted to inmates with longer sentences, and can shower and exercise only as often as circumstances allow.

"We just don't have the facilities and the staff," said RCMP Sergeant Marlin Degrand.

"Dead time" is how Barb McDonald, a probation officer with the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Board, said her clients have described these shorter internments.

"They say it's boring as hell in there," she said.

Hache said the Fort Smith correctional centre used to send care packages, including toiletries, to women held at the RCMP detachment. Hache said she has been concerned that young offenders are also sometimes held at the detachment, but Sergeant Degrand said it's only while they await transfer.

Correctional Services director Dillon said the service is hoping inroads into rehabilitation will be made with the Inuvik facility. He said it was initially a surprise to learn the centre, with a capacity of 12 young offenders, would be the first one in the country exclusively for girls.

"We thought, 'What are we doing?'" he said, "but didn't doubt for a second that what we were doing was right."