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| Report: Canadian Prison Knew Alarms Were Faulty Years Before Escape |
| By National Post |
| Published: 03/17/2003 |
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More than half of the alarms on inmates' windows were not working when a prisoner fled an Ontario medium-security institution, even though the Correctional Service of Canada had known of the defect for nearly two years. It was shortly past midnight on Jan. 16, 2000, when officers at Fenbrook Institution, a prison 160 kilometres north of Toronto, saw an inmate jump from a second-floor window of a housing unit and run toward the woods and along the facility's nature trail. Officers soon caught him but a tussle ensued, and other inmates started taunting the officers through their windows, according to an internal board of inquiry report on the escape attempt. Although the inmate did not get far, the inquiry highlighted serious security concerns, according to the report, obtained by the National Post under the Access to Information Act. The fibre-optic mesh screen covering the inmate's bedroom window, designed to trigger an alarm if it is tampered with, did not work. 'The investigation team discovered that more than half of the window screens in the cells of Falcon Unit [where the inmate lived] were not operational the night in question,' the report says. 'Fenbrook management has been aware of the screen deficiencies since August, 1998. Coordinator of Correctional Operations office have tracked the deficiency, it had been logged for Chief of Plant Maintenance to rectify,' it says. Michael Provan, Fenbrook's warden, said the alarms were not acceptably installed when the prison was built in 1998 and the institution was working with contractors to correct the problems when the escape was attempted. 'These were one of the things that were not working to our satisfaction but the alarms were not the only level of defence. Our fence was working and a lot of other good stuff was still working,' Mr. Provan said. The quick return of the inmate shows security was not lacking, and the alarms have since been repaired, he said. Critics of the Correctional Service, however, add this to a long list of incidents they say demonstrates the need for an overhaul of how prisons are run in Canada. A recent Post investigation into one year's worth of prison breaks found the most common escape method by the 82 inmates who fled was simply to walk away from a facility where no bars or fences hold them in. 'When I hear this scenario, it reinforces what we all know: The Correctional Service of Canada needs an external review so these types of things won't happen to the degree and with the enormity with which they take place today,' said Rick Bartolucci, a Liberal member of the Ontario legislature. Mr. Bartolucci is the chairman of the JoeMac committee, a citizen's group that opposes the lenient treatment of federal offenders. The group is named after Joe MacDonald, a Sudbury, Ont., policeman killed in 1993 by repeat offenders. 'I have great concerns with this. Canadians want to feel that they are safe. This is part of the lame-brained Correctional Service's definition of how we reintegrate people into society by providing them with opportunities to walk away,' Mr. Bartolucci said. |
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