Corrections staff, offenders both bearing the brunt of P.E.I.'s mental health challenges, officials say
Workers in Island jails dealing with inmates with more complex problems, standing committee hears
Both the staff who work in Island jails and offenders are facing more challenges that are the direct result of mental health issues, addictions and homelessness.
That's what MLAs heard Wednesday from officials with P.E.I.'s community and correctional services division during a legislative standing committee meeting.
They said an increasingly potent supply of street drugs is creating safety issues, not just for inmates but also for correctional officers.
"Staff are dealing with traumatic situations daily," said Denise Spenceley, manager of planning and organizational development at the Department of Justice and Public Safety.
"[They] are faced with navigating very difficult situations, shift work is hard, offenders are challenging and pay rates are not often competitive, even with our neighbouring provinces."
Officials told the committee that the complexity of offenders' needs has grown with the Island's population.
They often come into jails with multiple issues, and up to 70 per cent are struggling with addictions.
"Historically… alcohol was the main issue here in P.E.I.," said Shannon Ellis, the province's director of community and correctional services.
"Today, there's a lot of fentanyl in the province, there's a lot of crystal meth in the province. What we're seeing is folks coming into our facilities a lot of times in a lot of distress."
The community and correctional services division is the largest within the Department of Justice and Public Safety, with about 240 permanent employees.
While the division is currently fully staffed, some have concerns about whether the system will be able to keep up with the growing demand.
"We continue to see on Prince Edward Island the sort of domino impact of the rapid population growth that we've seen over the last five years," said Green MLA Peter Bevan-Baker.
"If you combine that rapid population growth with the sentencing trends… and the increased prevalence of street drugs, you end up with a situation where the demands on the system and on the infrastructure of the justice system are obviously increasing."
'It just keeps repeating'
That population growth and its side-effects — like P.E.I.'s housing crisis — have also made homelessness an ongoing issue.
Officials told the committee Wednesday that much of their discharge planning time is spent trying to sort out where offenders will go after they're released from custody.
Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly said the government needs to do a better job of having support in place for offenders once they are released from jail so they don't end up back behind bars.
"We have to make sure the people have a place to go, outside the circles they came from, or it just keeps repeating," McNeilly said.
"You can't just drop somebody off out of custody on a street close to where they got into trouble the first time. We've got to do a better job of providing that extra barrier for them to make sure the same thing doesn't happen again."
The justice department officials said it's all having an impact on staffing. They said some correctional officers are telling their managers they can't handle the increased workload and complexity of the cases.
While the department has enough staff now, Ellis told the committee he's concerned for the future.
"I worry about five years from now, where it would be if the trends continue."
With files from Wayne Thibodeau