Unlocked doors, security blind spots at N.W.T. women's facility: report
Fort Smith facility due to be replaced by 2018
The N.W.T. prison from which two women escaped six years ago still had a number of safety and security gaps in recent years, according to Tuesday's Auditor General of Canada report on the territory's corrections system.
"These concerns are significant," said Glen Wheeler, the audit principal with the auditor general's office. "Addressing them will enable the Department of Justice to better ensure the safety and security of correctional facilities for inmates and staff."
The female unit of the Fort Smith Correctional Complex dates back to the 1960s and has a capacity for 20 inmates. It's the only adult female facility in the territory.
In 2008, inmates Sheila Jewell and Toni-Lynn Elizabeth Buggins escaped from the facility by climbing through a window.
While inmates serving time at the female unit are considered low-risk, Wheeler said the fact that female remand inmates — who are considered maximum risk by the department — are also housed at the facility underscores the need for tightened security.
Perhaps the most eyebrow-raising observation made by the auditor general's report is that the doors at the facility do not lock from the inside in order to allow inmates to exit the building in the event of a fire.
That's because the building was permitted as a residence, as opposed to a detention centre, under the National Building Code of Canada, which means it wasn't built with non-combustible materials and doesn't have a sprinkler system.
The department is planning to replace it with a new building in the 2017-2018 fiscal year, at an estimated cost of $35 million, but the auditor general says existing problems at the current facility need to be addressed now.
Other problems pointed out by the report include a lack of space to conduct proper medical examinations of new inmates to detect signs of mental instability or contagious disease, and blind spots in the facility's security camera system.