NWT says its female inmate supervision rules aren’t working

The NWT government is looking to roll back changes to inmate supervision introduced at its jails over the past five years, saying the new rules have proven unworkable.

In 2021, new legislation and regulations came into force that limited the circumstances in which male corrections officers can supervise female inmates.

“All reasonable efforts must be made to ensure that supervision of a female inmate is conducted only by female staff members,” the regulations stated. At the time, the territory said its regulations incorporated best practices nationwide.

The territorial government now wants to repeal some of those regulations, saying it cannot hire enough staff – and asserting that rules like these are better handled in policy documents, which can be more easily changed, than in regulations.

“There are significant operational challenges” because of the 2021 regulations, NWT director of corrections Blair Van Metre told Cabin Radio.

Fort Smith is home to the NWT’s only women’s jail, with a capacity of 23 inmates. Van Metre said recruiting female corrections officers in Fort Smith has become more difficult in recent years.

“Those numbers have got to the point where there has to be a change, and we have to look at recruiting male corrections officers in the community as well,” he said.

The GNWT is proposing to repeal the regulation that seeks to ensure only female officers supervise female inmates in most circumstances, alongside a similar regulation about who should interview female inmates.

A third regulation regarding video surveillance would also be repealed.

“A male staff member shall not view video surveillance of a female inmate if knowledge that the surveillance was viewed by a male staff member would be reasonably likely to subject the inmate to embarrassment or humiliation,” that regulation states.

The GNWT now says this regulation is “unclear and subjective.”

“What may be considered embarrassing or humiliating to one person may not be viewed in the same way by another person,” the territory stated in a document explaining the proposed changes.

“It is not practical for staff to decide, every time they review video footage, whether this would or would not embarrass or humiliate a particular female inmate. In addition, staff would need to view the footage in the first place to assess whether it could be interpreted as embarrassing or humiliating.

“A more effective approach is to allocate resources towards ensuring equitable service delivery for all inmates, regardless of gender.”

Risk management

Van Metre told Cabin Radio other jurisdictions allow the kind of cross-gender supervision that the Department of Justice is now seeking to introduce.

If more male corrections officers are used, “there will always be a female officer or female staff present,” he said.

Asked about the presumption that the 2021 regulations were introduced to manage risk to inmates, Van Metre said there is “probably an inherent risk in any correctional facility” regarding supervision. He said he trusted in the professionalism of the department’s staff and more training would be set up.

“We’re confident that those risks can be managed,” he said.

Without any change being made, he added, programming could be lost, daily routines could be affected, staff safety could become an issue and levels of overtime may go up.

Van Metre said the GNWT’s proposal is to stop setting out these kinds of rule for inmate oversight in regulations and instead handle them using policies.

The policies that would replace the regulations, if these changes go ahead, have not been made public.

“We do have some policy that is currently under development,” said Van Metre.

“Corrections is ever-evolving, and it’s easier to change pieces of policy to have those certain protections in place rather than have to go and amend legislation.”

There is no firm timeline for the rules to be changed, which requires the legislative amendment to go through once a public comment period expires and feedback has been reviewed.

Members of the public have until June 30 to send feedback.