Here’s the internal message from Correctional Service Commissioner Don Head that was distributed Friday, October 7 to all CSC staff across the country:

Message from the Commissioner
As the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, it is important that I reinforce the significance and importance of the role we play as professionals, public servants and peace officers. As CSC employees, we are held to a high standard and are expected to be role models for those who have committed crimes and charged to our custody. While this may feel daunting at times, it is the commitment we make by accepting a job within the Service. We need to be cognizant that our every action and decision is a reflection on our special role in society and we will be judged accordingly.
Recently, a significant incident has been reported within one of our institutions in the Ontario Region which has the potential to bring into disrepute the reputation of CSC and the tremendous work that staff do every day. We have commenced the necessary internal investigations in relation to this incident and the police have initiated their own investigations. Appropriate decisions and actions will be taken as the facts become available and substantiated over the coming days.
While I believe this is an isolated incident, it is incumbent on all of us to ensure that our actions, and those of our colleagues, are consistent with the law and policy and that inconsistencies are reported to appropriate managers immediately. This at times may be a difficult choice or decision to make, but as professionals, federal public servants and CSC employees it is our duty and responsibility.
I am confident that together we will move through this current situation and make the appropriate decisions as required. In the meantime, we have our respective roles and responsibilities to fulfil and I appreciate your commitment and dedication to CSC, public safety and the law on a daily basis.

Don Head
Commissioner
If you would like to respond to this message, or offer a comment or suggestion, please reply and your response will be automatically redirected to the e-Communications team at GEN-NHQ e- comms.

Sources have told Cancrime that an incident at maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary on October 4 is the focal point of Head’s memo. On that day, a correctional officer at the pen, Canada’s oldest, was assaulted by an inmate. Corrections Canada issued a news release about the assault, but provided few details. Sources tell me that the attack on the staffer was carried out by an inmate who was acting on orders from another prisoner, a heavy in the prison who warned the inmate he had recruited that he’d suffer a violent fate if he didn’t carry out the attack. The recruit carried out his orders. After the assault, staff at the prison learned who had ordered the attack. That inmate ended up in a Kingston hospital suffering from broken bones and bruises. Medical staff called police. That has sparked an investigation into the allegation that the prisoner was beaten by a number of prison staff at Kingston Penitentiary.

The CSC news release about the assault on staff:

KP Assault on Staff

Corrections has said publicly that it is hiring at least 3,000 new staff immediately to deal with the mammoth prison expansion program that is underway, the byproduct of the Conservative government’s tough-on-crime initiatives. The service has posted online a warm and fuzzy, six-minute recruiting video that features interviews with current CSC staff who talk about the joys of working for the service – though the video never actually shows you what life is like inside a penitentiary, particularly a maximum-security institution. Oddly, the video appeared briefly on YouTube yesterday and then it was converted to private status, a few hours after I tweeted about it. The video was accompanied by text that said Corrections is hiring 4,000 staff, not the lower 3,000 figure reported previously. It’s not clear if the video was actually posted on YouTube by CSC.

The recruiting video concludes with some reassuring words from the unseen narrator about the value of a career in Corrections:

So what do careers with the Correctional Service of Canada mean?

Teamwork: Variety: Good pay, good benefits, and a variety options including shift work and regular hours positions.

The chance for growth and a solid career path…

If you’re interested in changing lives, protecting Canadians, we’d like you to consider joining our team! Visit our site or talk to a recruiting team member – the Correctional Service of Canada

They may want to edit the video to add the line: “And you have to be able to shoot straight.”

Sources tell me that recruits in the prison guard training program are particularly having trouble qualifying on use of the 9 mm handgun (they use the Heckler & Koch P2000 V5) that correctional officers carry (See previous post about the woman who would have been CSC’s first hijab-wearing guard who failed because she could not pass the firearms testing with this handgun). Anyone who has fired a handgun will tell you that it’s not like TV cop shows – it’s a challenge to hit anything from any distance with a handgun. Corrections staff are trained “to engage targets at a maximum distance of 25 meters” with this gun, according to the internal firearms training manual. As someone who grew up with guns and has fired handguns, I can tell you that it would be a challenge to hit anything from 25 metres with a handgun, and incredibly difficult if that target was moving. Corrections considers handgun training vital, in part, because officers who are escorting many prisoners in the community – to court appearances, hospital visits and other forays out of prison – now carry handguns. If an escort involves two guards, at least one is equipped with a handgun,in most cases. You can now see federal prison guards sitting in Canadian courtrooms with sidearms, a relatively new practice.

If Corrections can’t find more recruits who can pass the firearms testing, or teach them how to shoot straight, how will it hit its hiring targets? If it stumbles in its bid to hit those recruiting numbers, how will it staff the millions of dollars worth of new prison units that are now in the planning or construction phases?

» Read the confidential firearms training manual used by CSC

Layla Matar, 23, of Ottawa, Ontario, would have been Canada's first hijab-wearing federal prison guard (provided photo)

“I guess I can’t shoot,” Matar told me, in a telephone interview Friday from Doha, Qatar, where she is now teaching English. “I’ve never seen a gun in my life before so it was something new to me.” She has family in the small Middle Eastern country that borders Saudi Arabia.

Matar said she wasn’t able to fire the 9-mm handgun accurately enough, though she said she narrowly missed qualifying. Guards are trained to use a variety of weapons, including rifles, pistols and chemical agents.

Corrections Canada would not confirm that Matar was released or whether any other women who wear hijabs have applied to become guards.

“Under the Privacy act [we] cannot comment on who is in a course, who passes, who fails and the reason for any failures,” said Lori Pothier, a spokeswoman for the service at its national headquarters in Ottawa.

Matar, who has a criminology degree from the University of Ottawa, said Corrections Canada staff, including classroom instructors “were all very accepting of my differences.” She was “very disappointed” that she failed but said it was “the best experience of my life.”

Corrections had taken significant steps to accommodate Matar’s cultural and religious beliefs, including her desire to wear a hijab while on the job in a penitentiary.

“I appreciated that but I considered it my right,” Matar said. “It was new for everyone there but it was a good experience, everyone was learning more about my religion, more about what I need.”

The hijab is a traditional headscarf that covers the head and neck and is worn in public for the sake of modesty.

Corrections struck a committee to determine how to meet her needs and the service’s security concerns. A special hijab was being designed that would easily come off if she was grabbed in an attack by an inmate. She also would have been permitted to wear gloves and long sleeves to avoid skin-to-skin contact with men.

Matar said she was offered extra help if she wanted to reapply to the recruit program. She said she wouldn’t because she’d have to repeat all of the training.

“I loved the program,” she said. “I learned a lot but it’s very time consuming and very tiring. I was given the option of becoming a parole officer, which is probably more of what I’m interested in.”

Matar said she might apply to a parole officer program in about two months. She joined the correctional officer program because she believed it was a good fit with her education and her plan to pursue a masters degree.

“It, for me, sounded like what I had studied and I really liked the idea that it would … open up a lot of ideas for research in the future,” she said.

Matar said she moved to Canada with her family from Lebanon when she was about a year old and grew up in Ottawa.

Pothier would not say if Corrections will be actively recruiting female Muslim guard candidates, now that it has plans to accommodate their religious needs.

“We are recruiting everyone who is qualified to apply,” she said.

As of March 31 last year, there were roughly 7,200 prison guards working for Corrections Canada.

Training can last more than 20 weeks, including online work, classroom instruction and two weeks of on-the-job instruction in a penitentiary. Recruits are trained at five staff colleges, located in New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

» My story sparked some spirited debate on Facebook that includes comments by Layla Matar, see the conversation here

(this story first appeared on Canada.com)