B.C. Corrections is investigating an attack Sunday at the Vancouver Island Regional Corrections Centre on Wilkinson Road that left one inmate in hospital.
B.C. Ambulance paramedics rushed to the maximum-security jail after one inmate assaulted another with a sharp object, known as a shank, at about 3:48 p.m. Sunday. A B.C. Ambulance spokeswoman said the victim was taken to Victoria General Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The attack happened in a living unit monitored by one correctional officer, said Dean Purdy, spokesman for the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union’s Correctional and Sheriff Services section.
“The officer would have alerted other officers, who would have been there to respond to the incident,” Purdy said.
Purdy said overcrowding is an issue in the jail, with between 300 and 305 inmates in a facility designed to house a maximum of 206.
“With more inmates inside a unit, it creates more tension, more possibilities of violence,” Purdy said.
He said that since 2002, the guard-to-inmate ratios in most living units have fallen from 1:14 to 1:28, with one as low as 1:40.
“Violence, drugs, contraband — including shanks and other homemade weapons — are a daily reality in our line of work, and our correctional officers have very dangerous and stressful jobs to have to face this type of environment every day as they go to work.”
