Saskatchewan auditor urges long-term plan to tackle crowded jails

Saskatchewan’s provincial auditor says the Ministry of Justice needs a long-term plan to address crowding in jails.

Judy Ferguson says in her latest report that strategies are needed for adequate housing and rehabilitation for Saskatchewan’s growing inmate population.

“Are they making sure that people are going into the right facilities, do they need to go into facilities, or is there another way to do things?” Ferguson asked.

The report says Saskatchewan’s adult prisoner population has grown by 51 per cent since 2006 – mainly due to a 104 per cent increase in the number of inmates on remand awaiting trial or sentencing.

Justice Ministry spokesperson Drew Wilby said they can’t control the amount of people coming into remand, but there are observable trends.

“Often what we see are spikes over the weekend. We’ll have significant numbers come in on Friday, and of course because court isn’t on the weekends, we’ll see that spike and by Tuesday things start to clear out somewhat,” Wilby explained.

Ferguson’s report says alternative measures should be considered to curb the remand population, like electronic ankle monitoring and potentially introducing weekend court dates.

Overcrowding in jails can increase the risk of violence, make it tough to separate gang members and reduces space for rehabilitation programs.

Rural Ambulance Response Times

The auditor’s office examined rural ambulance response times in the Cypress Regional Health Authority (RHA) over the past year and found that ambulances got to rural emergency calls within a half hour, 83 per cent of the time.

The provincial target is to have a 90 per cent half hour response time for rural calls.

The report said the RHA didn’t receive adequate documentation on an incident report to determine why responses were delayed.

Ferguson said there is anecdotal evidence that this is an issue in more rural health regions.

Mark Wyatt, assistant deputy minister for the health ministry, said that determining best use of ambulance services is a balancing act.

“You have a limited number of ambulances serving that area and all it takes is pulling one car out of service to then potentially extend the response time,” Wyatt said.

Based on data from 2014/15, 39 per cent of ambulance calls in the Cypress RHA were for emergencies. Most of the other calls were for patient transport.

The report also looked at other issues, including special equipment for people with disabilities.

Ferguson says the Ministry of Health needs to actively manage wait lists for equipment, because people are waiting more than four weeks for things such as wheelchairs and hospital beds.

With files from The Canadian Press