The province didn’t do any sort of detailed evaluation to map out the way forward for corrections in New Brunswick earlier than saying plans to construct a brand new jail within the Fredericton area, in line with data reviewed by CBC Information.
In 40 pages of data turned over by the Division of Justice and Public Security after an eight-month access-to-information battle, there’s no report assessing the enterprise case for constructing a brand new Fredericton-region jail, together with how a lot it may cost to function, or any evaluation of how a lot house the correctional system may want sooner or later.
The province plans to construct a 109-bed, $42-million provincial jail in Grand Lake.
CBC filed a right-to-information request to the division final August, asking for data that debate the necessity for the brand new jail.
The division initially refused to offer any data to CBC, and wouldn’t share the data with the ombud for her evaluation, claiming all of the data are confidential cupboard paperwork. The province later reversed course on holding the data from the ombud, and finally launched some data to CBC.
An ombud investigation into the federal government’s refusal to offer data is ongoing.
‘Custody use alone was not efficient’
In 2008, earlier than the province constructed new jails in Shediac and Dalhousie, the province employed a marketing consultant to look at wants within the correctional system and report on how the system ought to look sooner or later.
The 86-page doc, Constructing Hope: Towards a Renewed Imaginative and prescient of New Brunswick Corrections, concluded the province wanted more room within the system to ease overcrowding. Quickly after, the province introduced new jails in Shediac and Dalhousie to interchange older, smaller amenities.
However the report additionally warned that analysis confirmed “custody use alone was not efficient in lowering re-offending or repeated returns to jail by inmates,” since most individuals within the system are coping with each dependancy and psychological well being points.
“New Brunswick ought to cut back or finish the criminalization and use of jail custody for residents with psychological sickness and addictions points,” the report beneficial.
Greater than a decade later, as New Brunswick contemplated constructing a brand new jail within the Fredericton area, it doesn’t seem the provincial authorities carried out the same in-depth evaluation of the system prefer it did in 2008.
The division additionally didn’t contemplate the 2008 report earlier than deciding to construct a new jail within the Fredericton space.
A written assertion from the Division of Justice and Public Security says it targeted on proof from 2021 onward, together with prices from earlier correctional building initiatives, when making the choice. It additionally says the 2008 report can be within the archives now.
“We are able to verify that, in assessing wants in 2021, division officers didn’t search the Provincial Archives for historic paperwork,” spokesperson Coreen Enos wrote.
Contained in the data
In August 2021, Deputy Minister Mike Comeau emailed two different division employees to ask them to create a memorandum to government council relating to “a brand new jail,” in line with the data CBC obtained.
A couple of days later, different employees have been requested to generate statistics for the submission to cupboard, together with charges of incarceration and whether or not they’re growing, and whether or not the ratio of employees to inmates is protected.
A analysis analyst despatched three charts, which present a rise within the price of drug trafficking crimes in the neighborhood, and a chart exhibiting the development in grownup admissions to correctional amenities.
“The development is downward for probably the most half, particularly in 2020-21,” the analyst wrote, referring to the development in admissions.
One other employees member wrote that the variety of new admissions has climbed for the reason that starting of 2021, and the employees ratio to inmates was “stretched.”
Lower than 4 months later, the province issued a press launch to say it could construct a brand new jail within the Fredericton area, quoting then-Public Security Minister Ted Flemming as saying the correctional system was “stretched.”
The announcement got here with out a lot warning. The jail wasn’t talked about within the occasion’s election platform in both 2018 or 2020.
‘Numbers don’t lie’
Within the 40 pages despatched to CBC, probably the most substantive evaluation of the necessity for a brand new jail appears to return in a 14-page presentation known as, “N.B. Correctional Providers Inhabitants Over-Crowding.” It’s dated August 10, 2022, virtually eight months after the province had already introduced the brand new jail.
Underneath a slide known as, “Numbers don’t lie,” a graph exhibits “a gradual improve” in folks arriving within the correctional system over a span of seven months.
The presentation outlined the detrimental results of overcrowding in jails, together with heightened tensions, and a rise in violent incidents and “incidents the place use of drive is required.”
It additionally describes among the causes for the rise in admissions: “contributing societal conditions,” prolonged sentences, and extra folks in jail on remand, the place folks spend time behind bars whereas ready for a courtroom look, typically earlier than they’ve been convicted of against the law. It doesn’t cite any sources for that data.
Correctional system was three folks over capability on common in July
The province’s most up-to-date knowledge present the grownup male correctional system had 473.4 folks on common in it in July, simply barely above the 470 capability quantity. It contains people who find themselves not bodily current inside jails, together with folks in hospital or on a supervised non permanent launch, however who could also be required to return to jail.
Statistics Canada knowledge exhibits that as much as 2022 (the latest 12 months the place knowledge is offered), the rise in admissions appears to be pushed by folks in jail on remand.
The province was additionally coping with overcrowding in its jails in 2008, earlier than the province constructed new correctional amenities in Shediac and Dalhousie.
However the Constructing Hope report discovered the difficulty of overcrowding was complicated, and never essentially brought on by crime charges, which have been falling on the time. It cited the growing use of remand and the federal authorities’s “powerful on crime” method as two causes for the rise in folks behind bars.
‘A closed method’
Criminologist Justin Piché studied the Constructing Hope report as a part of his PhD analysis on jail building. He obtained it by means of entry to data a number of years in the past and shared it with CBC.
Piché, who now teaches on the College of Ottawa, mentioned the federal government “didn’t even do their homework” earlier than saying a brand new jail within the Fredericton area, noting the shortage of a doc like Constructing Hope.
“They’re utilizing a closed method the place basically they resolve, they announce after which they defend the choice, fairly than an open method that includes public session to look at whether or not or not jail building is required, with a long-term view that strikes past the current scenario — trying on the previous, taking a look at future tendencies, not simply what’s occurred within the final 12 months,” he mentioned.
Whereas the data despatched to CBC present the province seemed into different choices for housing prisoners, together with including a unit for males to the ladies’s jail in Miramichi or creating dorm-style housing in jail gyms in Shediac and Saint John, there’s little dialogue round neighborhood alternate options, Piché mentioned. The 2008 Constructing Hope report inspired the province to make use of extra neighborhood alternate options equivalent to drug and psychological well being courts.
“Deal successfully with addictions and also you considerably cope with re-offending,” the report says.
Saint John is the one location within the province with a psychological well being courtroom.
New jail to be in-built Austin’s driving
The division’s assertion says it’s launched all data about why a brand new correctional centre is required “aside from these exempt from disclosure underneath the regulation.”
Earlier this 12 months, the province scrapped plans to construct the jail in Fredericton. A proposal to rezone land to make approach for the brand new jail was accepted, however some neighbours have been against it.
The province introduced final month that it could construct the jail in Grand Lake in Public Security Minister Kris Austin’s driving, drawing criticism from the Opposition Liberals, who questioned how the choice was made.
One of many causes the federal government has supplied for constructing a brand new jail is to scale back journey between Fredericton and the Saint John Regional Correctional Centre.
The brand new web site in Grand Lake is a couple of 45-minute drive from the downtown Fredericton courthouse, in comparison with about an hour and 25 minutes between the Saint John jail and Fredericton courthouse.