Kugluktuk (Aug 14/06) - An inmate escaped from the Kugluktuk correctional centre for about five hours on Aug. 7, marking the second such jailbreak in four months.

Police found the 26-year-old man intoxicated and passed out on the porch of a residence around 9:30 a.m., according to Cpl. Denise Keatley of the Kugluktuk RCMP detachment.

He had piled some clothing under his bed sheets in the Iluvut penal facility to create the appearance that he was still present, Keatley said. With two guards on duty, he then apparently slipped out a back door, she said.

The man, who had most recently been convicted of theft over $5,000, was charged with being unlawfully at large and was later sent to the North Slave Correctional Centre in Yellowknife.

Koovian Flanagan, acting deputy minister of justice, insisted that the inmate did not "escape" as the Iluvut centre is a minimum-security healing facility. The doors are not locked and offenders are able to enter and exit, when authorized, for activities that include smoking, she said.

"They're on an agreement. They know they're there to... get treatment. If they breach (those terms), they get sent back to a secure facility," she said. "I don't know if you even really have a story. It's not an escape."

In the first escape in April 2006, an inmate with a record of aggravated sexual assault and assault was on the loose in the community for close to 10 hours.