Surrey gets 'criminal justice campus'
Public Safety Minister Kash Heed
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Updated: October 07, 2009 11:45 AM
VICTORIA – Surrey's city hall property will be involved in the construction of B.C.'s newest pretrial centre, adding 180 cells to the province's overworked prison system.
Public Safety Minister Kash Heed said Wednesday the target for completion is 2013, with a new jail expanding the existing Surrey remand centre. Surrey's present city hall property will be part of the redevelopment.
"We have a city hall there, we have the RCMP detachment there, we have the existing remand centre there, and with the addition of this new state-of-the-art facility, we'll build on this criminal justice campus concept," Heed said.
Additional cells for the Prince George remand centre will also be part of the expansion program, as well as a security upgrade for the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women in Maple Ridge. The 180 additional cells will hold two prisoners each.
The B.C. government has a capital budget of $185 million to beef up its corrections system, part of a seven-point "gangs and guns" strategy announced in February by Premier Gordon Campbell.
The number of prisoners in custody awaiting trial in B.C. has ballooned in recent years, despite the construction of the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam. Heed said the new Surrey centre will include a tunnel to transport prisoners to the Surrey courthouse.
"We're going to be sure when we look at the remand prisoners, if we have to bring them in to the courts, that we strategically locate these people so it's easier for the prisoner transportation," Heed said.
A political showdown over a B.C. government-owned site in Burnaby before the May election has put the project a year behind schedule. On the eve of the election, the government withdrew its plan for the former Willingdon correctional centre after local protests and handed the site issue to Metro Vancouver mayors.
Kathy Corrigan, whose husband Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan led opposition to the Willingdon proposal, knocked off former B.C. Liberal MLA John Nuraney in a hard-fought election for Burnaby-Deer Lake that centred on the prison issue.
