A focus on healing: Kugluktuk’s jail marks 20 years of operation

Most jails look the same — metal bars, guards, barbed wire and locks. A lot of locks.

Kugluktuk Ilavut Centre, one of Nunavut’s only two open custody jails, is currently under renovation. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)

But the correctional centre in Kugluktuk is different. So different, that any of its inmates could easily open the door and flee at any time from the bluish building that sits right on the shore of Coronation Gulf. But in 20 years of the facility’s existence, that has almost never happened.

On the anniversary of the Kugluktuk Ilavut Centre, Nunatsiaq News visited the open custody jail, which is one of only two across Nunavut.

It’s currently under renovation, with no people in detention.

The facility is located in the oldest operating building in Kugluktuk. Built in 1960, the one-storey space used to house various federal departments until it became the correctional facility in 2005.

It can accommodate up to 15 male “clients.”

Official corrections lingo used to refer to incarcerated people as “inmates,” said Ken Mulgrew, Ilavut’s warden.

They switched to “residents” as a less degrading term, then dropped it for “clients” in order to avoid a word that might be associated with the legacy of residential schools, he said.

The 3,000-square-foot centre has a living room, kitchen, private meeting room and five identical dorm rooms, where the clients sleep. None of the dorm rooms have locks and the main door to the building doesn’t have a lock either. Clients can walk out of the detention centre if they wish.

Mulgrew, who has been with the facility since it opened on April 2, 2005, didn’t know the exact number of flee attempts the facility has had, but said there is little point in escaping.

Most of the clients are from out of town and wouldn’t have anywhere to go if they did leave.

As well, Ilavut Centre usually gets the most “co-operative” clients in Nunavut.

Before they are transferred to the facility, clients are evaluated to make sure they’re not the kind of people who would want to “test the limits” of the less strict incarceration, Mulgrew said.

That means men convicted of murder or sexual assault or those who have showed aggressive behaviour in other facilities will not end up at Ilavut Centre.

“They usually will be in other facilities and then, maybe, at the tail end of their sentence they would end up here,” Mulgrew said.

The centre has 17 staff including six caseworkers, or “life workers” as Mulgrew calls them.

They help clients with “life-skill based activities” like getting up on time, doing daily chores and following a schedule.

The life workers also help with writing resumes and signing up for mental health or addiction counselling.

The clients’ days vary depending on whether they were able to get a job in the community or not.

If they work at the local grocery store, hamlet or in construction, they will stay at the facility overnight but leave every day to earn a salary like any other workers would.

Whenever they get a paycheque, however, they have to show it to the jail’s financial clerk. In an effort to control contraband, the facility must be aware of all money coming in, Mulgrew said.

Also, the working clients have to pay 10 per cent of their income to the facility as a “rent,” to learn about the responsibilities of paying the bills.

Those who don’t have a job start their days at 8:30 a.m. with a gathering at the main hall where they discuss their agenda for the day. The clients will then help with cleaning and cooking. Some days, they go on trips on the land or by boat.

“The focus is more on healing,” Mulgrew said.

Although it’s hard to measure the exact rate of recidivism — the rate of people reoffending after spending time in jail — in Mulgrew’s experience, the centre’s success rate is higher than in other Nunavut jails.

And the bigger chunk of the clients’ sentence spent in Ilavut correlates to a higher chance they will never end up in jail again, he said.

“Sometimes we’ll just help them for a month, and you can’t do a whole lot of work and counselling and programs, ” he said.

“But if they’re here for three to six months, it makes a big difference.”

Mulgrew didn’t have an exact date when the facility will be able to house clients again.

For the past year, it’s been under renovation with electrical work underway and repainting. There are also new beds for the dorms.

“More of the same, I guess,” Mulgrew said of what he hopes the facility’s next 20 years after the renovation will be like.

“I mean, it’s great to get improvements and changes, but ultimately we’ll just keep going and doing what we’ve been doing.”