Quinte News has confirmed what a source told us last week about the Quinte Detention Centre housing primarily female inmates.
On Friday we released details that the provincial centre in Napanee would see a dramatic shift in the demographics of the inmate population.
A second and now third source has confirmed this to us.
We are told that many female inmates from the Central East Correctional Centre (Lindsay Jail), the Brockville Jail, and the Ottawa-Carlton Detention Centre will be rehoused in Napanee at the QDC.
One of our sources says about 180 women are now detained in Napanee, with now only around 60 males.
OPSEU Local 467 President Mike Cranley says the change is happening quickly.
“More than half of the inmates at Quinte Detention Centre are already female. The major issue we have right now is that there are provincial guidelines in place requiring female correctional officers to carry out certain sensitive procedures with female inmates, and we don’t have anywhere near enough female staff. Only about 20% of our correctional officers are female. And we’re already short-staffed the vast majority of the time across the entire detention centre. The Ministry needs to hire a lot more staff, particularly female correctional officers, in order to meet everyone’s needs and keep everyone safe.”
Quinte News reached out to the Ministry of the Solicitor General. Media Spokesperson Andrew Morrison provided the following statement.
“The Quinte Detention Centre (QDC) continues to have both male and female inmates in custody at the facility. When necessary, inmates may be transferred between facilities to accommodate infrastructure-related work. The ministry has no plans at this time to convert QDC to a women-only facility.”
