Complaints about the province’s correctional facilities made up nearly half of all calls received by the province’s Citizens’ Representative last year.
Bradley Moss’ office, which is tasked with hearing and investigating allegations, provides recommendations to government when required.
A shortage of toothbrushes for inmates at HMP was among the complaints he’s received. Minister Helen Conway Ottenheimer says, to the best of her knowledge, that problem has since been resolved and they’re looking at a long-term solution to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
(File photo.)
Bradley Moss told VOCM Open Line with Brian Callahan that calls about the province’s correctional facilities last year made up 48 per cent of all of the public complaints made to his office – a total of 436.
That includes complaints about everything from recreation to special diet requests, heat in the summer, and cold in the winter.
“Last month, for September, we took 40 complaints from HMP, one from Clarenville, eight from Bishop’s Falls, one from Stephenville, (and) five from Labrador Correctional.”
“In addition, because we calculate these separately, we had 17 health care-related complaints from HMP, one from Labrador, one from Stephenville, and one from St. Johns’ lockup.”
He says he gets “extremely high” cooperation from the department, and that just how the cases get settled is specific to each complaint.
“We’re going to disagree with the institution some times, and yes, sometimes we’re not being told the complete 100 per cent truth by the caller, but it’s literally case-by-case how we get these settled. And if we need to formally investigate them under the Act, we will. And those take time.”
Listen to “Bradley Moss – Citizen's Representative” on Spreaker.
