IQALUIT - In an effort to ease overcrowding at the Baffin Correctional Centre (BCC), the Justice Department has arranged to send more adult offenders to Ontario.

Under the new agreement, a maximum of 30 inmates can be sent to Ontario, whereas the previous memorandum of understanding had a cap of 15.

Alan Hartley, Nunavut's director of corrections, was instrumental in securing a new agreement to send more inmates to Ontario in order to ease overcrowding at the Baffin Correctional Centre.

Last Sunday, 25 adult offenders were sent down to Ontario in a specially-outfitted aircraft. Most of the inmates will spend time at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre.

Alan Hartley, Nunavut's director of corrections, said although the inmates are outside of Nunavut, there are still efforts to keep them connected with home. An Inuit liaison officer visits offenders in Ottawa and as part of the land program at BCC, coolers with harvested caribou and seal are sent to inmates in the south.

"It's a short-term strategy," said Hartley of the attempt to ease overcrowding.

As of May 29, there were 67 inmates in the BCC, a facility which has bed space for 64. In the past year, numbers have swelled well into the 90s, Hartley said.

"Hence, I was very desperate to get those numbers down," he said.

The BCC also has an agreement to send adult offenders to the NWT. While that agreement doesn't limit the number of offenders, an inmate count that was recently more than 40 may not be possible any longer because of that territory's own budget cuts and other issues.

One medium-term strategy that is being considered is using the young offenders facility to ease the burden of overcrowding at the BCC.

Hartley said the Youth Criminal Justice Act has brought down the number of youths in the system, while tough crime legislation has increased the number of adult offenders, resulting in decreases in the young offenders facility and increases in the BCC.

That idea has prompted concern that putting adult offenders into the young offenders facility might result in displacing the youths right out of the territory.

"Ideally we'd find another alternative or an alternative facility for the youth," said Hartley, adding "every conceivable effort" is being put towards keeping the youth in the territory.

The BCC is further burdened because it also houses female offenders - a stress on staff and female offenders, according to Hartley. A women's facility in Iqaluit is expected to be ready by late 2009, with materials coming up on this year's sealift. The women's correctional facility is budgeted at $1.2 million, with $918,000 in additional costs estimated by the Department of Community and Government Services and debated in the legislative assembly recently.

Hartley said a 36-bed men's minimum and medium security facility in Rankin Inlet is well in the works, with final materials due to arrive via sealift in 2011. So far $2.3 million has been earmarked for planning and the initial stages of work.