Milner Ridge Correctional Centre to get 160 new beds

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This article was published 08/06/2010 (5854 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The day before a massive rally by government workers over conditions in Manitoba’s overcrowded jails, the Selinger government Tuesday announced an 160-bed expansion to Milner Ridge Correctional Centre.

The new expansion to Milner is the fourth in four years and will increase capacity to 524 inmates.

The Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union said Tuesday it expects hundreds of corrections and probations workers to protest what they say is the province’s inaction in addressing overcrowding at provincial jails, backlogs in dealing with accused offenders on remand and growing caseloads for workers dealing with individuals on probation.

“These issues are getting worse, not better, and the ripple effect on other government employees working with victims of crime and their families, at-risk youth, those involved in managing the judicial system, and those who provide protective services to children, is simply unmanageable,” the union said in a release.

Protesters will march through the downtown at 2:15 p.m. beginning at the Winnipeg Convention Centre and proceed down St. Mary Avenue to Memorial Boulevard, and up Memorial Boulevard to the steps of the Manitoba Legislature.

In the past few years the province said it has added 172 cells to the Lac du Bonnet-area jail. Work is already underway on adding another 64 cells announced earlier this year. Modular construction is being used in that project to speed the construction process, making the beds available more quickly.

Design work is already underway on the 160-bed expansion, the province said in a release. The project will be tendered in fall 2010, with construction beginning spring 2011 and completion expected by fall 2012.

The province has said with recent federal changes, including the end of the two-for-one sentencing credit that judges grant offenders for time they’ve served in jail while awaiting trial, will put more offenders into the province’s jails.

The province says since 1999 when the NDP came to power, 419 beds have been added to Manitoba’s adult correctional system.

Attorney General Andrew Swan said in a statement that this year alone, work is underway to add 40 more beds at The Pas Correctional Centre and 80 at the Brandon Correctional Centre. Sixty-five news beds will be added to the women’s correctional system with the new women’s facility being built in Headingley to replace the Portage Women’s Correctional Centre.