OLDS — During a meeting, councillors for the Town of Olds expressed concern about the fact a clean needle exchange program was about to begin at the Bowden Institution.
The program was set to begin March 1 at the facility, which is a medium security jail.
The federal government has been rolling the program out to institutions across the country since June 2018.
On its website, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) says the purpose of the Prison Needle Exchange Program (PNEP) is to “help prevent the sharing of needles among inmates and prevent the spread of infectious diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and HCV (hepatitis C).”
The Union of Canadian Correctional Officers fears their members’ safety could be at risk as a result of the program. The union says inmates have attacked staff with needles in the past.
The CSC says “the safety and security of staff, the public, and inmates is a priority for CSC. Appropriate safeguards have been established in every institution to ensure that PNEP kits are safely stored and accounted for at all times.”
“To me it’s a sad situation if the jails are not trying to rehabilitate these people when they are finally incarcerated and not trying to deal with these situations, because if they’re only going to encourage them to use while they are in jail, when they’re released, they’re just the same menace they were when they went in,” Wanda Blatz said during a Feb.10 Olds council meeting.
Councillors Heather Ryan and Mary Anne Overwater also raised the issue.
Blatz said she attended an Alberta Urban Municipalities (AUMA) seminar last fall featuring RCMP, the Edmonton police chief and a police officer from Taber.
“They all said the sad thing is there’s no rehabilitation being done to these criminals and that’s part of the problem and that’s why it’s all such a cycle; that they’re just going in and coming out and reoffending,” she said.
“I think the federal government really needs to look at that type of situation and start gearing towards getting some rehabilitation done for some of these criminals and these repeat offenders particularly.”
Red Deer-Mountain View MP Earl Dreeshen, who was attending the meeting agreed.
He said more also needs to be done to provide mental health services for inmates and to teach them life skills so they’ll be able to be productive in society when they get out of jail.
He said some inmates deliberately commit crimes so they can stay in jail during the winter.
