Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 25/00) - Usually hidden behind prison walls and barbed wire, five NWT corrections employees were recognized nationally by Canada's Governor General Aug. 6.

Yellowknife Correctional Centre's (YCC's) Guy Leblanc, Doug Friesen, Stan Mercredi and Raymond Tuccaro along with Bertha Calvin, of the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre, received Corrections' Exemplary Service Medals for their dedication to the field.

Stan Mercredi has spent 22 years at YCC as a corrections officer and will be retiring in October.

"It's kind of an emotional time for me. The award comes at a time when it's almost icing on the cake," he said.

"At times I feel the job is thankless and we're not recognized but this shows that we are."

The public's perception of people working in the field of corrections may be somewhat skewed by Hollywood stories of brutality and injustice. But inside YCC the atmosphere at a glance appears friendly between employees and prisoners.

Raymond Tuccaro serves as YCC's traditional counsellor and liaison officer and has spent 30 years in the facility, working in the kitchen, as an officer and as a supervisor.

He is looked to by his peers and by prisoners with respect directly related to his common-sense approach.

"Most of the inmates honestly believe in what he's teaching," explained deputy warden Guy Leblanc.

"Whatever they lack, they don't lack intuition and they'll see right through you."

Tuccaro himself is modest about the praise he's received since being given the award.

"It's nice when they thank you," he said. "If you only get it once in your lifetime you still feel good."

Leblanc, also a recipient of the medal, has a long history in corrections, starting out at the infamous Dorchester Penitentiary in New Brunswick.

"Probably the five years I worked there were the worst five years in its history."

His years in the North have been focused on implementing, improving and making programs work for inmates here.

YCC warden Doug Friesen has been a key player who helped introduce traditional knowledge camps, as well as overseeing the construction of two offender facilities.

He is about to oversee two more when the young offender facility is built in Yellowknife in 2002 and the adult facility in 2003.

"It will be a correctional centre, but the focus of the centre will be for healing."

Bertha Calvin has been walking the halls of correctional institutions for women in the North since 1977.

Now a corrections supervisor in Fort Smith, Calvin at one time acted as the cook, administration officer and warden of the Territorial Women's Correctional Centre in Fort Smith all at the same time.