In what the Town of Osoyoos hopes will become a successful and longstanding working relationship with the Okanagan Correctional Centre (OCC), four prisoners spent last Thursday cleaning up the nuisance invasive plant puncturevine at the Desert Park racetrack facility.
As OCC warden Steve DiCastri promised several months ago during the grand opening for the first new correctional facility built in British Columbia in more than a decade, low-risk prisoners would get involved by performing community projects in Osoyoos and Oliver.
This was the first outside work crew from the OCC to get involved in community work, said a spokesperson for BC Corrections.
The Work Skills program offered by B.C.’s Justice System teaches offenders the value of work by helping them gain the skills they need to find work once they are released from prison. Practical training and meaningful job experience gives offenders a better chance of becoming self-sufficient after release from the correctional system.
“Only low-risk, open-custody inmates are eligible to participate in supervised community work programs outside the centre itself,” she said. “Considerable planning goes into an inmate’s placement in open custody, with risk assessments weighing inmates’ histories and needs.”
Several programs offset correctional centre operational costs, or benefit the community through work with non-profit organizations and other levels of government. These community projects consist of general cleanup of recreational areas, construction of picnic tables for community events, and snow shoveling for local assisted living facilities.
In this case, the Town of Osoyoos requested the weed eradication work, which OCC is providing at no cost to the town, she said.
“Inmates who work on outside work crews that perform community services like this receive a small remuneration for their participation in the work program,” she said.
The work crew’s deployment follows broader collaboration between BC Corrections and the community that occurred before OCC opened, she said.
Examples of other types of work could include activities such as maintaining trails, collecting roadside garbage, doing community clean-up, and helping with special projects or events as requested by non-profit organizations.
This particular work project, the first of its kind for OCC, is providing participating inmates with an opportunity to give back to the community, she said.
“It should be noted that, like other correctional centres, OCC is providing inmates with opportunities to enhance their education and skills – a key way to support job-readiness upon release, as well as long-term behavioural change,” she said. “Together with other programming that engages and supports interested inmates in planning for their release, these opportunities can help to reduce recidivism and make our communities safer.
Invasive weed removal and road cleanup is just one of the many community projects the work skills program offers to inmates across the province.
Jim Dinwoodie, the town’s director of operational services, said the inmates did a terrific job cleaning up puncturevine at Desert Park for roughly six hours.
“From the reports I received, they did just an excellent job,” said Dinwoodie. “We have some serious issues with puncturevine in our community and it’s very bad at Desert Park and the inmate crew did a terrific job picking up a lot of this stuff.”
Jason Heath, the director of inmate programs at OCC, contacted him and asked if there was any particular job a work crew could tackle and picking up puncturevine at Desert Park immediately came to mind, said Dinwoodie.
“It needed to be done and we really don’t have the resources to have our (town) crews doing it,” he said.
The inmates were supervised the entire time and only those approved through a rigorous screening process qualify to leave the OCC and get involved in this community work program, said Dinwoodie.
He’s hopeful this new working relationship between the town and OCC will continue, he said.
There are many other community projects where work crews from the OCC would be very beneficial and he’s confident this working relationship will continue to grow and prosper, said Dinwoodie.
“From everything I’ve heard, it went very well,” he said. “There are a lot of other projects where we could use the help and I would most certainly try and do something like this again.”
The spokesperson for BC Corrections said work skills programs like this aren’t unique to this province as similar programs are being offered – with the same solid results – between communities and correctional facilities in other provinces.
Inmates at the OCC are also involved in a community garden project where much of the vegetables used to feed the inmates and staff are grown in a huge greenhouse at the prison.
Much of the food that is grown at the prison that isn’t consumed by the inmates and staff is donated to local food banks.
The OCC opened in January, five years after it was announced the new jail would be built on land owned by the Osoyoos Indian Band.
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
