@watkins said:
Ross,
The outdoor area looks a little bleak. Shouldn't the prisoners be kept busy. How about a few glass houses and a large vegetable patch so that they can grow their own food. This would be good therapy, and after all, the devil makes work for idle hands. How many prisoners will the building house? I assume that the prisoners will have committed relatively minor crimes, and so are there for only a short period (a few months?)
Regards,
Bob
The design is for a Provincially operated facility. By agreement with our Federal Government the Provinces have to house those sentenced up to "two years less a day". The profile of offenders includes those who have done violent crimes, rape, extortion, robbery, sex offenders, drunk drivers, and white-collar offences like fraud, information theft etc. Small jails like this may also have to house those remanded to custody but not yet sentenced. They can include axe murders, cop killers or any other kind of offender who is likely to be convicted and put away for years. Although such facilities also house those who get a month for refusing breathalyzer etc. the facilities can't really be thought of as low or medium security. (The public typically thinks they are because of the two-years-less-a-day thing but they really aren't).
The reality is that offenders in an institution like this only are let outdoors for one hour per day. They do that in small numbers (say up to 15 at a time) in a secure exercise yard -- in this case featuring 23 foot high solid walls. The standards are that each offender gets 3 square feet of window or access to the equivalent amount of daylight. Those windows typically have no opening more than five inches wide. While it might be nice to think offenders can go outside and garden the reality is they don't. With costs to incarcerate being what they are, Provinces have to house more and more offenders on less money. The biggest cost is staffing. They just can't afford the staffing resources needed to supervise taking the offenders out of the secure building. Note that facilities like this don't have big perimeter security fencing, watch towers etc. There are fences but they are primarily intended to keep the public away and avoid drug drops etc. Our Provincial jails have no weapons --- correctional workers do not carry guns; there are none in the entire facility.
So if you find yourself incarcerated in one of our jails don't expect you'll be out gardening, getting a university degree, or learning a trade. You'll spend countless hours playing cards and watching TV with people you'd likely rather not spend any time with and can't get away from. You'll eat whatever food they give you and have a shower when they tell you to. You'll live by schedule with practically no personal freedom of choice. If you are lucky you'll have access to some paperback books - romance novels and the like. If you know people who'll accept your collect calls you can use a phone but your call is monitored and you get no privacy. Once a week you might get a visitor but in many facilities your visit will be secure -- looking at each other through bullet resistant glass and talking on a monitored handset. You won't get out for the birth of your child, death of a family member or for any other reason except a medical emergency. Frankly it will really suck and yet your family & friends will think it is a country club where you are babied. A large percentage of the public think offenders should have to do hard labour like digging useless holes.
I hope none of us end up in jail.
Regards, Ross
