Dear Editor,
Re: Just when you think it is safe
I have read the above mentioned article by David Shanahan, and I have looked it over many times and I cannot overlook the facts.
This initiative is all to do with assisting Correctional Officers and Correctional Administration to ensure a safer and controllable facility for all inmates and staff. I commend the Government of Ontario for adding this tool to assist Correctional Officers to perform and carry out their duties of confinement and control in an orderly and effective fashion. This initiative, and I might stand corrected, has zero impact on the external issue of public safety of a Provincial Facility anywhere. This is an internal issue for care, control and safety of inmates and staff. The last paragraph of the article is Mr. Shanahan’s own musings, as I do not see it attributed to any Ministry spokesperson.
Now, not to be long winded and go on with facts, and I do know of what I speak, I have questions which should be sought out. I would like to see a site plan and bricks and mortar design of this new facility, if it exists. The Government should provide this via Freedom of Information and we will see this in your next edition or a reasonable explanation of why this is not being released. If not, it is only a conceptional idea as many in the past, i.e., 700 bed facility in Kanata, 350 bed Phase 2 in Brockville as part of the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre which was to be built to fill the bed shortage created by the closure of Rideau Correctional and Treatment Centre in Burritt’s Rapids. The Government of Ontario still owns the land in Brockville and I have seen the blueprints if they still exist. Who knows?!
Dr. W.J. Young, C.O.E.
Ottawa
