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Correctional officers aren’t holding out hope much will change under Doug Ford’s new government, focused as it is on saving money.

“The Ford government likes to say it’s all about law and order. If that is the case, you need to put some money into it,” Chris Jackel, an officer at Central North Correctional Centre in Penetanguishene and co-chair of a joint employee relations committee for the government and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.

Instead, he’s seeing cuts at some institutions, Jackel said.

Asked if the new government is listening to correctional staff as it tries to improve jails, Jackel replied, “Short answer, no.”

What’s making matters worse, said a correctional officer at EMDC in London, is the nature of the recent assaults.

“The seriousness of the assaults is major,” he said, asking his name not be used. “A staff member is going to be killed in provincial corrections.”

It’s too early to tell if the new government will have an impact on the rising violence. The PCs were elected last June. The final report on violence inside Ontario jails from Howard Sapers, the independent adviser on corrections hired by the Liberals, was released in December.

“The ministry is reviewing the recommendations from the independent adviser on corrections and determining how best to address them, with input from front-line staff,” Community Safety and Correctional Services spokesperson Andrew Morrison wrote in an email.

The ministry is also reviewing existing defensive tactics and the use-of-force model for correctional officers, and reviewing training on de-escalation and human rights, Morrison said.

At the same time, the ministry has a pilot project that has put shield devices in some facilities to go in front of cell door hatches that inmates have used to assault staff, Morrison said.

Both Jackel and the EMDC officer say the province has handcuffed staff by making it more difficult to discipline inmates.

A key tool to deter poor behaviour was the threat of segregation, but its practice is limited by the province, Jackel said. “It worked. There was a whole core of the inmate population that feared going to segregation.”

Five years ago, correctional staff and inmates were struggling with violence because jails were understaffed and overcrowded, the EMDC officer said.