Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Monday, June 11, 2007

IQALUIT - A new women's jail in Iqaluit - the first in the territory - will finally provide female inmates with services, such as counseling, without leaving Nunavut.

The facility will curb the practise of sending certain prisoners to Fort Smith and Ontario, said Markus Weber, Nunavut's deputy minister of justice.

The territorial government will spend just less than $1.2 million on the facility, slated for construction on the same grounds as the Baffin Correctional Centre, which houses male inmates.

Weber said the prison is meant for inmates awaiting trail or sentencing as well as those serving a maximum of two years for minor offences.

The need for a permanent facility for women has been discussed for several years but was exacerbated by a few recent incidents highlighting the shortcomings of Nunavut's current system for female inmates, said Weber.

"Traditionally, we have two to four women in custody at one time," said Weber. "Where they'd be is in Fort Smith (or Ontario) ... For many years Nunavut has relied on other jurisdictions to hold inmates."

But last summer, three Nunavut offenders had no place to go as neither Fort Smith nor Ontario were capable of taking them in.

"We ended up with three women back here, with no facility to hold them. In the interim, we held them in RCMP cells," he said.

"We later held them at the courthouse, which was not a good situation, as we couldn't offer them programming or provide them with counseling - programming that male offenders would get. We had to create a temporary facility."

A trailer located next to the territorial jail was built, but was not deemed feasible as a long-term solution.

"Fairly quickly we found out there would be issues making it impossible to house inmates there, because in the trailer, we don't have the ability to lock the prisoners down. They each have their own bedroom, but the rooms are not locked from each other."

The new facility, which according to Premier Paul Okalik will be up and running in the next year or two, will be seeking to train seven women staffers, including one supervisor and six case workers.

Kathy Hanson, president of the Qulliit Status of Women Council, said the new facility is a great idea because female inmates won't need to leave the territory so they can be visited by their families.

"I think it's important to have visitations to see their children," she said.

Hanson said she hopes the new facility will provide inmates with treatment for alcohol problems and give birth to programs tackling the roots of crime among women in Nunavut.

"A lot females might be in this predicament because of housing situations, homelessness, spousal abuse," she said.

Weber said a capacity for holding eight prisoners was decided on partly because "we have seen some upward trends among females in the last year. It's not a scary increase, but we need to plan for some expansion."

Chris Debicki, an Iqaluit defense attorney, said he "can't remember a time when there have been eight women in custody."