British Columbia’s Tent City
The B.C. government is facing criticism over its decision to house inmates in futuristic-looking giant tents next to prisons in Kamloops and Maple Ridge as a temporary solution to overcrowding.
Solicitor General John van Dongen said Tuesday the structures are secure and sophisticated, with air conditioning and heating systems. “They have remote control automatic doors,” he said. “They have surveillance cameras. And I want to emphasize these will only be [used for] low-risk offenders. The structures will house about 150 inmates while new permanent buildings go up, van Dongen said.
The prisons in British Columbia are well over capacity.
There are 1,557 jail cells in all of the province’s correction centres, but on average they have to accommodate 2,545 inmates, government figures show. On any given day, the jails operate at 170 per cent of their capacity.
Perhaps the managers of the BC Corrections system have been reading about Sheriff Joe’s tents in Phoenix. However, BC’s rain forest is hardly the same as the southwestern desert.