Court Security and Prisoner Transfer Costs Discussed at ROMA

Thursday, 23 January 2020 11:07

Oxford County led a delegation to the Solicitor General at ROMA to raise awareness about a 38 percent increase in court security and prisoner transfer costs.

OXFORD COUNTY - Oxford County led a delegation to the Solicitor General of Ontario Sylvia Jones at the ROMA conference this week.

They wanted to raise awareness of the 38% increase in court security and prisoner transportation costs Oxford’s municipalities have experienced over the past six years. Warden Larry Martin says court costs have gone up significantly.

"From 2012 to 2018, the six year program, the court costs for those two programs went from $550,000 to $750,00, that is a 38 percent increase and it is only going to get worse with benefits and salaries as they go up. At one point in time, I believe it was 2012, it was assured that there would be a 100 percent upload from the Province and that hasn't happened yet and we just wondered, how long that was going to take before that did happen."

Martin says they also they also wanted to advocate for the full funding of these services by the Province. He notes they did get some assurances from the Province.

"The Ministry explained to us is that what they are trying to do is cut the costs, cut their costs and by bringing the costs down, we won't have to come up with as much money for the difference, it will take time, they are looking into it and they are looking at modernization as far as trying to cut costs. It will be awhile, but hopefully not too long because this gap is only going to get bigger."

Warden says the County has a Court Security and Prisoner Advisory committee.

"I indicated to the Minister that we would be more than happy to work with her on that and discuss any other programs or possibilities that could come down the road, that could maybe help streamline the security and prisoner transport in the future."

The request from the County was to have the Province assume the full cost of delivering Court Security and Prisoner Transfer immediately. Last year the financial burden on County taxpayers for these costs was $540,000.

The Solicitor General did not provide any kind of timeline or guarantee that the Province will assume the full costs of court security and prisoner transfers.