Whistleblower living in fear

Peter Clough

The Province

Sunday, August 01, 2004

A Fraser Valley prison guard says she fears for her family's safety after learning that inmates were approached to help in an alleged bullying campaign by a group of her co-workers.

Lori Bailey, a 34-year-old correctional officer at Mountain Institution in Agassiz, says her family has been living behind locked doors since last October when she was called at home by her warden and told to report to a different prison at the beginning of her next shift.

"The reason," she says, "was the institution could not guarantee my safety following information coming forward that inmates had been solicited by a certain staff member to target me."

Bailey says Corrections Canada refused to share details of the report other than that the alleged plan had been an attempt to have her "removed" from the workplace.

"We were told to monitor any unusual activity around our house," says Bailey. "And to always be aware of who was around us and if anything odd happened to our vehicle or our house to make them aware and to notify the RCMP."

"We were told to monitor any unusual activity around our house," says Bailey. "And to always be aware of who was around us and if anything odd happened to our vehicle or our house to make them aware and to notify the RCMP."

This is the price Bailey has paid for being a whistle-blower.

The mother of three has worked at Mountain for going on nine years. Her husband, Don Bailey, is the institution's correctional supervisor. He takes charge when the warden is not there. The family lives in nearby Chilliwack. Despite the gruelling shifts and the less-than-appetizing atmosphere of their workplace, the Baileys were happy -- until last August when Lori returned from maternity leave and found that things had changed.

There were new faces, a new union, a new arena of "office" politics. Lori Bailey says the increase in union-management hostilities wasn't all she noticed.

She says she suspected "a small group" of her co-workers was tampering with computers, destroying property and accessing confidential information.

The young mom says her decision to report what she'd learned came from a sense of duty.

"I had a job to do and if I felt something was wrong I knew I should speak out about it," she says. "I knew too much. I was a senior staff member and I caught on to what was going on."

Bailey says that many of her colleagues were initially supportive when she spoke out. But she said their support eroded day by day. She could almost handle the taunts about ratting to management, along with the jokes about her husband -- who, she insists, tried to keep his distance from the escalating conflict. Where Lori Bailey felt the most vulnerable was on the line -- checking the cells occupied by robbers and killers.

"When you work with offenders it's very important that you work as part of a team," says Bailey. "We're dealing with very dangerous people. So you become involved in a situation with inmates and maybe you don't have anybody to back you up, or you go down to do a range walk and they don't watch or don't pay attention."

She says she knows the inmate who stepped forward to say he and other prisoners had been approached by a staff member and says she has no reason to doubt his story.

Since then she has been transferred between four minimum-security prisons and Corrections Canada offices around the Lower Mainland.

She says prison officials have warned the Baileys several times to take security precautions but have refused to provide actual protection -- other than notifying Chilliwack RCMP on the day, about two weeks ago, that one of Bailey's alleged harassers left the penitentiary for good. Bailey says the staff member left as a result of disciplinary action.

In the meantime, their teenaged daughters are under strict instructions about their personal safety. At home, the Baileys' doors have been locked through 35 C-degree days. Their vehicles are checked on a routine basis.

The alleged bullying has also cost the Baileys in the pocket. For one thing, as a result of Lori's constant reassignments, she says, their daycare bill has grown from $100 a month to $600.

Don Bailey says he's tried to keep out of the situation at work while being supportive to his wife. He calls himself "the collateral damage."

"I either behave like a husband or I behave like a professional," he says. "One thing I have to say is that I've behaved like a professional. All they want is for me to cross that line and then I'm toast. Then they have me."

But Bailey says he's implicitly involved because for the first time in 17 years of service he fears that he or members of his family might be a target of violence.

"I've dealt with everybody you've heard of in the news," he says. "But in 17 years, I've never worried about an inmate stalking my home. Never."

The Baileys say Corrections Canada is not doing enough to resolve their situation.

"We're tired," says Lori. "We're exhausted. We just want to go to work and come home and raise our family and live in peace."

Corrections Canada regional communications manager Dennis Finlay said he could not discuss the case specifically but said all staff harassment complaints are investigated and dealt with. He said staff security is of paramount importance.

Finlay confirmed that disciplinary measures had been imposed on a staff member involved in the case. He insisted, however, that staff relations at Mountain were generally good.

"It's a very rare case -- even in our system," he said.

© The Vancouver Province 2004