HMP on the verge of total lockdown as prison grapples with lack of guards

Inmates are staring down the prospect of being locked in their cells around the clock as Newfoundland and Labrador's largest correctional facility contends with a critical shortage of guards to supervise them.

Her Majesty's Penitentiary — the problem-plagued, Victorian-era institution that houses up to 175 inmates in St. John's — has been bleeding staff in recent months, with union president Jerry Earle telling CBC News this week that some correctional officers have recently walked off the job.

The remaining officers are grappling with soaring summer temperatures inside the prison's walls and find themselves worn down by mandatory 24-hour shifts, said Earle.

"I've heard staff basically saying, 'I'm not sure how much longer I can do it … I can't go back to work in that facility,'" Earle said.

Earle, head of the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees, said it could be a matter of weeks or even days before the penitentiary is forced to confine inmates to their cells indefinitely.

That would mean no visitors, no recreational time and no programming, he said.

"That heightens the tensions in these facilities," he warned.

The prison has regularly been thrust into the spotlight for deaths, overdoses and its crumbling infrastructure. It's also been the subject of two independent reviews since 2008.

In recent years, a number of people have died by suicide within the prison's walls. Last month, more than 100 former inmates signed on to a class action over the alleged flagrant use of solitary confinement at HMP. 

Those problems are only compounded when inmates don't have access to library books, mental health programming or the outdoors, says Cindy Murphy, director of the provincial chapter of the John Howard Society. 

"It's going to come to a breaking point," Murphy said. "It's kind of like a pressure cooker right now."

Murphy means that literally, in a sense: poor ventilation throughout the 163-year-old building has left guards and prisoners sweltering.

"One inmate described it to us as [being] a dog left in a car on a hot day," she said. "That's profoundly troubling and difficult, and certainly not what we'd call humane conditions."

Murphy said as recently as Thursday, society workers were denied access at the door of the prison because there weren't enough guards on staff to supervise.