Female staff at Alberta jail face dangerous intimidation — from other guards, report says

An Alberta prison is under fire amid allegations of sexual assault, harassment and intimidation by male guards and managers towards women working at the jail, where several people have been suspended without pay pending two separate investigations commissioned by the federal government.

Women working at The Edmonton Institution, the city’s maximum security prison, regularly face sexual harassment from male employees and are scared to report it, afraid for their own safety and that of their own families, sources told the CBC.

Correctional Services Canada (CSC), the government body responsible for prisons told VICE News that it is investigating the matter and taking it seriously. It declined to provide specifics as the investigation is ongoing.

According to interviews with unnamed sources, male staff at the institution for years have been making “degrading comments, jokes, gestures, and sexual advances” towards female staff, and guards in particular. Sources also told the CBC that new female recruits are singled out by male staff, who ask them out, demand sex and sexual favours, and make sexual comments about their bodies and appearance.

CSC has an Employee Protection Protocol that encourages staff to tell their managers about issues as soon as possible, as well as counseling services.

“There is also the possibility of reassigning employees who do not feel comfortable in their current work environment, and we are in the process of accommodating relocation requests that were made as a result of misconduct allegations,” Correctional Services Canada spokesperson Véronique Rioux told VICE News.

Most women who experience this behaviour, which has become so common that it’s considered a part of the prison’s culture, choose not to complain, opting instead to move to other institutions or leave corrections altogether, sources said.

The women are scared to report the behaviour due to fear of retaliation, in the form of abandonment by their coworkers in threatening situations, for example. According to the CBC’s sources, it’s common for harassers to use inmates to threaten women’s safety, threatening to “miss” them being assaulted by an inmate if they report the incidents to a higher up.

Some male guards also allegedly use the forbidden practice of “double dooring”— refusing to open a second set of doors to enter a new unit after an officer has already walked through the first set, either alone or with an inmate, leaving them stuck in between. The intimidation goes beyond the prison, allege staff, with people getting their cars keyed and being followed home.

Supervisors responsible for reviewing harassment complaints tend to be friends with the alleged perpetrators, leaving female staff with little confidence that their identities would be protected, especially given the history of colleagues outing people who reported harassment.

Last month, as CSC commissioner Don Head announced a criminal and administrative investigation at the jail, seven staff were removed from the property and suspended without pay in connection to the allegations, according to CBC.

The CSC said it commissioned an independent assessment of the workplace from Presidia Security Consulting. Since then, the department has also formed an investigative team, including members from outside the prison, to look into the allegations.

“Edmonton Police Service is conducting a separate investigation and we are cooperating fully with our police partners,” Rioux told VICE News in an email. “Several staff actions were implemented,” she said, declining to go into further details.

According to an internal report commissioned by the CSC and obtained by CBC this summer, a handful of “kingpin” employees had taken control of the prison. The report on the toxic work culture of the jail was ordered after it became public that some male guards were using work phones to have sexually explicit conversations about female coworkers.

“Many of the people who become part of it are good people but helpless against its power,” said the report, which offered 40 recommendations, and described how those who spoke up were sometimes left on their own, without backup while on the range with inmates. “How do you get rid of something so all-consuming?”

“There are still staff who have not overcome the view of women as sexual objects, rather than equal colleagues,” the report said.

A tip line that was previously for sharing potential criminal activity and threats against CSC institutions, inmates, and staff has been expanded, so employees can also report workplace misconduct. An email has also been created for people to report harassment concerns.