FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 14, 2000

Lone private security guards to take over community escorts

TORONTO - Starting this spring, the Ontario government plans to hire lone private security guards to escort convicted criminals on community visits to hospitals and dentists’ offices.

Government lawyers revealed the news in documents tabled at the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB).

"Ontario correctional officers do 20,000 community escorts a year," said Leah Casselman, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. "This wreckless cost-cutting represents 20,000 deadly opportunities for things to go wrong."

Details of the privatization came to light after the union charged the government with taking reprisals for union wins under the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA). The Health and Safety Adjudicator had ordered the government to use two professional correctional officers for all community escorts.

Union complaints arose from incidents in which lone correctional officers were held at gunpoint by inmates’ accomplices. In one 1995 incident in Toronto, an inmate escaped from custody with the help of an armed accomplice while en route to Queen Street Mental Health Centre. The inmate was only re-captured by police after a 10-day crime spree.

In August, 1998, the Ontario Health and Safety Adjudicator ordered the government to provide more training and extra equipment (including pepper spray, batons, and flak jackets) for correctional officers on escort duty, and to require two officers on all escorts.

A year later, the union went to Ontario Court to make the government abide by the adjudicator’s ruling. On Nov. 19, 1999, the government announced the privatization of escort duties.

Ontario Provincial Police Commander C.D. Lewis, who did the original report on community inmate escorts, said in December, 1999 that the new program was (finally) providing correctional officers with the proper training and equipment.

Bill Baxter, president of the Police Association of Ontario, has also come out strongly in favour of professional escorts. "The handling, transporting, and escorting of correctional inmates is a job for trained and professional correctional officers," he wrote in a Dec. 15 letter to Corrections Minister Rob Sampson. "Public safety cannot be compromised by leaving the care of prisoners with private citizens who lack the training and experience so crucially required."

"It’s pretty obvious that the purpose of this privatization is to dodge the adjudicator’s ruling and cut costs," said Leah Casselman. "So much for this government’s supposed interest in public safety."

OPSEU represents 4,400 professional correctional officers in 52 Ontario correctional facilities.

- 30 -