A pastel prison where guards, inmates play chess

Lockers in the art room at North Slave Correctional Centre are decorated with drawings by inmates. The Yellowknife jail, which opened in 2004, is home to anywhere from 30 to 45 Nunavummiut at a time. (PHOTO BY CHRIS WINDEYER)

YELLOWKNIFE — North Slave Correction Centre is every inch a jail: with the exception of the public entrance, not one door inside opens without a key or the swipe of a card.

Once inside, it’s hard to remember that North Slave is visible from Franklin Avenue, Yellowknife’s main drag.

It’s even on a city bus route. And painted in pastel peach, green and off-white, North Slave more closely resembles a really tough hospital. Which, in a sense, it is.

“We’ve got everyone,” says case manager Steve Versteeg of the jail’s 160 inmates. North Slave takes both federal prisoners — those serving sentences two years and longer —and lesser offenders.

The population includes men convicted of sexual assaults, drunk driving, property crimes, and manslaughter, and “a lot of family violence,” Versteeg says.

As a case manager, Versteeg is like a guidance counsellor to the incarcerated. When a new inmate arrives, he’ll meet with a case manager who will conduct a suicide risk assessment.

Suicidal inmates are dressed in what Versteeg calls a “babydoll,” a fire-proof suit that’s impossible for an inmate to tear and fashion into a noose. Then they go into a special cell where they’re checked every 15 minutes around the clock.

There hasn’t been a suicide since North Slave opened in 2004, Versteeg says, making a point to knock on the wooden desk of the intake area.

Later, after a mandatory medical exam to screen for infectious diseases like tuberculosis (and a delousing shower), the inmate will sit down and work out a rehabilitation plan which determines which of the programs he needs.

Family violence, anger management and substance abuse courses are common selections.

“All of our programs are culturally relevant,” Versteeg says. Because North Slave’s population is predominantly First Nations, there’s a sweat lodge on the grounds, and a purpose-built stone sharing circle room, complete with fireplace.

But the jail also brings in elders to do counselling, including Inuit elders, who work with the 30 to 40 inmates from Nunavut who are doing time here.

“Our Inuit offenders are generally our best offenders,” Versteeg says. “They’re very compliant and hard working.”

Kim Roth, the manager of the Baffin Correctional Centre in Iqaluit, said the Northwest Territories accepts only the “cream of the crop” of prisoners from Nunavut, to help relieve BCC’s notorious overcrowding problem.

Roth says transfers to NSCC are a “last resort” and are limited to inmates who have no history of violence or contraband while in custody, and who haven’t been charged in connection with incidents on the inside.

For this system Nunavut pays the Northwest Territories $266 per inmate per day.

North Slave is divided into “pods” of 40 to 45 inmates each. The cells are located on two floors facing a desk from which a guard has an easy view of every cell.

And while the large common area in each pod has a TV, games and a cistern of coffee, each cell door is solid metal with a small window.

North Slave is built to hold 148 inmates and on April 24 was home to 160.

Versteeg says that number has only climbed in the last few months. But he adds, “We’ve always been flirting with capacity.”

We’re not permitted to interview the inmates, who are on a regularly-scheduled lockdown when we tour the cells.

But an inmate, peering out of his cell, sees Versteeg with two people (a lawyer from Maliganiik Tukisiniakvik is also here) who are obvious visitors. The inmate nods a hello.

“There are not a lot of physical assaults on staff at all,” Versteeg says, although he admits they do still happen. He even says it’s not unheard of to find a guard and an inmate squaring off in a game of chess.

One guard, finishing up his lunch while the prisoners in his pod are on lockdown, says fights and assaults were much more common in the dank and smoky confines of the old Yellowknife Correctional Centre, which closed in 2004.

The smoke was so bad, the guard says “you’d have to wring your uniform out when you got home.”

NSCC is smoke-free, boasts ample natural light and even has an arts studio, which is mostly used for painting.

Upstairs there’s a small chapel. It’s empty now, though Versteeg says it’s often full when there’s news of a death in a small community. The Bible’s gilded pages are open to Acts 4:12.

“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

With files from Gabriel Zarate