Do the crime, (kind of) do the time
Overflowing jails and security concerns mean more than 75% of convicts in Manitoba sentenced to serve time on weekends are in halfway houses... or their own living rooms
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/06/2017 (2470 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Most of the Manitoba criminals sentenced to serve intermittent jail sentences spend little, if any, time behind bars because the institutions they are being sent to are already bursting at the seams.
Instead, the majority are being re-routed to places such as local halfway houses, the Salvation Army or, in some cases, home. It’s a practice that has been quietly going on for years and now has some justice officials across Canada — including a local judge — calling for a major federal overhaul on the grounds key resources are being stressed and wasted.
“Intermittent sentences cause significant headaches for correctional officials, pose increased risk inside institutions and provide few rehabilitative benefits for those receiving such a sentence,” Manitoba provincial court Judge Ray Wyant wrote in a recent report on the issue. He was commissioned by the Ontario government to study that province’s bail and remand issues and recommend improvements, and his findings echo similar concerns raised in Alberta over the practice.
According to Statistics Canada, 210 Manitobans were handed intermittent sentences for the fiscal year ending in 2016. That’s up from 197 in 2015.
“There are more intermittent sentences since mandatory minimums and the removal of some CSO’s (conditional sentence orders) were introduced,” says Winnipeg defence lawyer Kathy Bueti. Under the Criminal Code, intermittent sentences are available to anyone who gets 90 days or less and can satisfy a judge that allowing them to maintain some semblance of a normal life is key to their rehabilitation — usually in the form of full-time employment or schooling during the week. Many involve repeat drunk-driving cases calling for minimum jail terms.
The Manitoba government provided slightly different statistics to the Free Press: 211 intermittent terms in 2016 compared to 223 in 2015. A spokeswoman said there are no plans for changes on the horizon despite the many challenges the cases pose. In a statement, she conceded that many of the offenders don’t actually spend much time in a real jail.
“These offenders generally serve their time over a weekend, when more people tend to be admitted into custody. Because intermittent offenders are in the community for the remainder of the week, it is also possible they could introduce contraband. For this reason, it is necessary to house these inmates apart from the general population.”
In any given week, there are approximately 30 offenders in Manitoba serving intermittent sentences. The province estimates more than half of them are in halfway houses or the Salvation Army, and about 25 per cent are doing their time in their own residence. That leaves less than a quarter behind bars, and they usually don’t stay there very long.
“Offenders with intermittent sentences are initially admitted to a correctional centre. After admission, an offender may be eligible to serve the balance of his or her sentence with a community-based agency, or another supervised location, where they can access programs or other supports. After serving one-sixth of the sentence, an offender may be eligible to serve the intermittent sentence from home,” the spokeswoman said.
After a long week of work, Jerry Acquisto normally looks forward to kicking back and relaxing on the weekend. But the Winnipeg window installer has less time for that at the moment. He was charged with a New Year’s Eve assault on his ex-girlfriend and recently pleaded guilty to that charge and a handful of court-order breaches.
Defence lawyer Alan Hogg got his client a 60-day intermittent sentence, allowing Acquisto to continue operating his company during the week in a move Acquisto said likely spared him from bankruptcy. Acquisto, 43, is expected to report to jail at 8 a.m. every Saturday and then is sent home at 3 p.m. every Sunday. He gets credit for two days served as he slowly chips away at his sentence. Many offenders will report on a Friday evening and get credit for three days, but that didn’t work with Acquisto’s schedule.
He began his punishment two weeks ago, showing up as required at the Remand Centre and was then transferred to Headingley Jail to spend Saturday night.
“It was gross. It’s jail. It’s not a fun experience. You go there, you get strip-searched, you change into their clothing, then you go into a cage basically,” he told the Free Press this week.
He was expecting to have to keep doing the same thing every weekend for the foreseeable future. But he was told by officials before he reported last weekend to go to a halfway house instead; Headingley had no room for him.
“I guess I was surprised; I was sure happy to get that phone call,” he said. He spent last weekend at the halfway house in the North End in what was marked departure from his experience at Headingley. There were 13 other men at the facility, all serving intermittent sentences.
“There’s not much to do, so you’re just sitting around, basically. You just shoot the s–t basically, play some cards. Everybody in there seems like good people. It’s not like how you figure with Headingley guys, where people probably deserve to be there. When you see a group of intermittent guys, they’re not hardcore criminals,” he said. “You go into one big room, there’s like seven bunk beds, there’s a TV; you just sit there and do your time.”
According to the most recent provincial statistics, released during the winter, every provincial jail in Manitoba is beyond capacity, led by Headingley which was housing 842 inmates in a facility designed for 549. The downtown Remand Centre, Milner Ridge, Dauphin, Brandon, The Pas and the women’s facility in Headingley were also overflowing. In total, there were more than 2,500 inmates packed into facilities built to house only 2,000.
Manitoba Justice officials were unable to provide an estimate for what intermittent prisoners cost the province every year, but Alberta provides some guidance. That province also averages about 200 intermittent sentences a year, and the government announced plans in 2013 to have Crown prosecutors argue against their imposition more aggressively on the grounds it cost close to $1 million annually to incarcerate them.
That’s one of the major issues outlined in Wyant’s report — and a big reason why people such as Acquisto aren’t simply thrown into general population at Headingley.
“The sheer numbers of inmates showing up for a weekend sentence can put considerable strain on the ability of correctional, detention or jail facilities to find room for them,” he wrote.
“These facilities are usually filled to capacity, if not over-capacity, at the best of times. Finding beds for intermittently sentenced prisoners can be very difficult. Because of the nature of their sentence it is policy, wherever possible, to keep intermittently sentenced prisoners in their own area, separate from the rest of the inmate population whether they be sentenced or on remand.”
In some cases, offenders serving lengthy sentences are being transferred out of jail on weekends to make room for intermittent offenders, Wyant said.
“Such movement is costly, risky and just plain unfair treatment of these transferred inmates,” he wrote. “If they suffer from some sort of mental illness, such transfers back and forth can have even more serious and negative effects,” Wyant wrote.
There have also been reports of inmates being triple- and even quadruple-bunked in cells, which adds to tension and raises the risk of violence, he said.
Wyant said there are many examples of offenders with intermittent sentences who didn’t have full-time employment, yet managed to trick the judge. And there are also cases where offenders get high or drunk just prior to reporting for their weekend stint. Some even smuggle weapons into jails at the behest of others.
“In such circumstances, some weekenders become reluctant mules for others, fearing for their safety or the safety of their loved-ones,” he said, adding they are essentially being “warehoused” due to the lack of available programming and treatment.
“There is little to do for weekend inmates but to sit in a locked jail cell or area for the time of their sentence,” he said.
That means rehabilitation — one of the Canadian judicial system’s sentencing principles, available to prisoners serving time on consecutive days — is entirely absent from weekend terms.
Acquisto is currently serving his third intermittent sentence. He was convicted on drug charges nearly 20 years ago and did that entire weekend sentence at Headingley.
“Back then you could at least smoke cigarettes, so it wasn’t that bad,” he said.
And about seven years ago, also following drug-offence convictions, he began his stint in Headingley but was eventually moved to a halfway house much like the one he’s in this time around.
“Your freedom is still taken from you,” he said. “If you’re a family man, you’ve got to work all week, then go in on the weekends. It’s not fun. But it’s a good thing, I guess, for guys who are working. You know, to get back to their life, contribute to society.”
Like any sentence, intermittent terms offer the incentive of time off in exchange for good behaviour: offenders typically serve two-thirds of their imposed sentences. In Acquisto’s case, that means spending 20 consecutive weekends, not the ordered 30. However, he plans to soon ask for “temporary absences,” which would allow him to abandon the halfway house and instead stay home every Saturday and Sunday under a curfew. He would be subjected to checks from police or probation officials.
Veteran defence lawyer Mike Cook says people who get intermittent sentences have essentially been given a “break” by the system — and must know there is little room for error.
“If they miss any check-in, that constitutes an unlawfully-at-large charge for which they are likely to get a custodial sentence if they don’t have a lawful excuse for not reporting,” he said. “A lawful excuse would be a medical emergency, not, ‘I missed my ride,’ or ‘I did not feel well.’”
Cook said he hopes judges retain the the option to sentence intermittently; one of his clients able to obtain one on the grounds he was needed to help care for his ailing and elderly mother during the week.
“It still ain’t no walk in the park, that’s for sure,” Acquisto said. “I wouldn’t say it’s an easy thing and guys are getting let off, because they’re not. Everybody makes mistakes.”
mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @mikeoncrime
Mike McIntyre
Sports reporter
Mike McIntyre grew up wanting to be a professional wrestler. But when that dream fizzled, he put all his brawn into becoming a professional writer.