During this year’s annual Correctional Services Staff Recognition Week (the first week of May), we recognize the important contribution to public safety made by correctional workers across Ontario. OPSEU/SEFPO represents members who have dedicated their careers to working with adults and youth in conflict with the law, in adult correctional institutions, youth centres, adult probation and parole offices, and youth probation offices.
Correctional workers include correctional officers, probation and parole officers, youth services officers and youth probation officers, nurses, social workers, recreational staff, administrative staff, kitchen staff, cleaning and maintenance staff and many others.
As we honour their contributions to public safety and their work with adults and youth, we also reflect on the impact this work has on correctional workers themselves. Over the past two years, we have seen a noticeable increase in occupational stress injuries among correctional workers, as they continue to navigate drastic underfunding, understaffing, overcrowding, unmanageable caseloads, workplace violence and other traumatic events, and as they work with a clientele with increasingly complex physical and mental health needs.
It has reached the point of a health and safety emergency, with at least nine correctional worker suicides and numerous close calls and mental health crises in the past two years. The provincial health and safety committees for adult corrections and youth justice are demanding concrete actions from the Ontario government to address this emergency in their ranks, including inpatient and outpatient treatment services at no cost to the employee, mandatory mental health training for all employees, and a mental health anti-stigma campaign in the workplace.
It is important to note that violence, injuries and deaths in correctional work settings are preventable. OPSEU/SEFPO continues to call on the provincial government to provide the funding, staff and infrastructure needed to make correctional workplaces safe for correctional staff and the adults and children they work with in correctional institutions and in the community.
2024 Correctional Services Ceremony of Remembrance
On Thursday, May 9th at noon, the annual Correctional Services Ceremony of Remembrance will take place near Queen’s Park, held in partnership with the Ministry of the Solicitor General and OPSEU/SEFPO. Ministry officials, OPSEU/SEFPO and Correctional Bargaining Unit leaders, and rank-and-file correctional services members will be in attendance to remember correctional workers who have died in the line of duty over the past 139 years.
It will be a time to not only remember those correctional workers who have fallen, but to commit to the prevention of further workplace deaths and injuries.