Article content continued

Growing pains

Remand centres house inmates prior to trial. The new, state-of-the-art Edmonton Remand Centre opened in the city’s northwest in 2013, replacing the much smaller, still-vacant remand centre in central Edmonton.

During the transition, the number of prisoners ERC could house grew from a few hundred to 1,952. In that time, the staff complement also grew, from 300 to 806.

That created difficulties that are still being resolved.

“Many interviewees expressed the view that, in the goal to hire for the new centre, the standards for new hires was minimal and some people hired were not sufficiently qualified.”

Many believe that in the rush to hire, existing staff were promoted to management positions without much leadership experience — particularly in dealing with conflict and harassment.

Those forms of harassment include sexual and racial harassment, as well as bullying and hazing directed at new hires, TLS said. One woman described being slapped on the butt by a coworker.

Overall, TLS witnessed a “sexualized environment” where relationships among coworkers were common. While the authors acknowledged that the staff is young and often seeking someone who understands what it’s like to work in corrections, “the extent to which this dating scene dynamic has become a part of the work environment is alarming.”

Photo by Codie McLachlan / Postmedia

Among the report’s other findings:

Favouritism in promotions and scheduling was the “most talked about” issue. Several staffers said that in order to get promoted, “you had to be on the Tactical Team, play hockey, or drink with the boys.”

Just 15 per cent of the workforce is female and there are no women in senior management.

Some said cellphone and social media use by on-duty staff is common, despite official prohibitions. One interviewee described seeing officers looking at inmates on Facebook.

Staff frequently take sick leave.

Some staff said management’s solution to harassment or interpersonal issues is simply to move the people involved to different units. “They just move people, they don’t deal with conflict or harassment.”

Others raised concerns about the drive to fill positions. “You can work at McDonald’s yesterday and ERC today,” one said.

Some staff said perks of the job included stability, good pay and overtime.

TLS came up with more than 60 recommendations to improve the work environment at ERC, including creating an independent position to assist with conflict resolution, new leadership training for managers and removing barriers to promotion for women.

TLS also said dating subordinates should be prohibited, and that ERC should establish a policy that “defines ethical behaviour about relationships and particularly, what happens if the relationship ends.”

Schweitzer said ministry officials have met with employees, management, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees and the Public Service Commission on the issue.

The goal is “to develop a detailed plan on how to make further improvements to ensure employees at the remand centre have the safe, respectful and well-run workplace that all Albertans expect and deserve.”