  Location in Nova Scotia | |
| Location | 1442 County Home Road Waterville, Nova Scotia |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 45°03′11″N64°40′01″W / 45.0531°N 64.6669°W |
| Status | Operational |
| Capacity | 120 |
| Opened | 1988 |
| Managed by | Department of Justice |
The Nova Scotia Youth Centre, commonly known as Waterville, is the only youth correctional centre in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Opened in 1988, the facility is operated by the Nova Scotia Department of Justice in the rural community of Waterville, Kings County.
The Nova Scotia Youth Centre was built in response to the Young Offenders Act, which came into force in 1984. It opened in July 1988 with a capacity of 120. [1] [2]
In the 1990s, Waterville consistently operated over capacity. In response, the province expanded the Shelburne Youth Centre in 1995. [3]
The Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), which came into force in 2003, provides more restorative justice options for youth and compels youth courts to consider options other than custodial sentences. As a result, the population held at both Waterville and Shelburne dropped sharply. In 2004, the Shelburne Youth Centre was closed and the remaining inmates were transferred to Waterville. [3] [4] In 2022/23, it was reported that Waterville held an average of less than 10 people per day. [1]
A riot took place at the youth centre on 4 September 2016, resulting in serious injuries to five staff. Several inmates were arrested. Speaking in the provincial legislature, Justice Minister Diana Whalen stated that no such incident had ever before taken place at the facility. [5] [6] The Nova Scotia Government Employees Union criticized the door control system at Waterville for allowing the melee to take place. [7] The Canadian Press requested, under Nova Scotia's freedom of information legislation, the results of a probe that the justice department had launched over the incident. Although the Information and Privacy Commissioner ruled in favour of the Canadian Press, as of 2022 the government refused to release the information, citing security concerns. [8] [9]
A March 1995 report by Viki Samuels-Stewart, commissioned by the Nova Scotia Department of Justice, found that young offenders were victims of abuse at both the Shelburne and Waterville youth centres. Some employees at Waterville testified that they had witnessed such abuses. [10] One of the changes made in response to the report was to require the presence of two employees during pat searches, except during emergencies. [11]
In 2019, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police launched an investigation, called Operation Headwind, into allegations of sexual abuse at the youth centre between 1988 and 2017. In July 2023, the police announced that they had gathered statements from 70 males who said they were abused at Waterville, and had launched a special hotline to gather more information. [12] The police believe (as of July 2023) that there could be as many as 200 abuse survivors. [13]
The Mi'kmaq are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces, primarily Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as Native Americans in the northeastern region of Maine. The traditional national territory of the Mi'kmaq is named Miꞌkmaꞌki.
The Westray Mine was a Canadian coal mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia. Westray was owned and operated by Curragh Resources Incorporated, which obtained both provincial and federal government money to open the mine, and supply the local electric power utility with coal.
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Barrington, officially named the Municipality of the District of Barrington, is a district municipality in western Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, Canada. Statistics Canada classifies the district municipality as a municipal district.
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The Nunn Commission of Inquiry was a landmark public inquiry into Canada's youth criminal justice system. It was chaired by the Hon. D. Merlin Nunn, a retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. The Nunn Commission examined the events of October 14, 2004, in which Theresa McEvoy, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, a 52-year-old teacher's aide and mother of three boys, was killed when the car she was travelling in was broadsided by another vehicle. The other car had been stolen and was being driven at high speeds by a serial young offender who had been mistakenly released from jail just two days previously.
The Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility is a Canadian prison located in Nova Scotia's Halifax Regional Municipality.
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Karl Richard Toft was a Canadian convicted sex predator and pederast who committed an estimated 200 sexual assaults while working as a guard at the New Brunswick Training School in Kingsclear, New Brunswick. He was regarded as one of Canada's worst sex offenders. Toft was convicted of 34 sex-related charges and sentenced in December 1992 to 13 years in prison. In 1994, Toft appealed the sentence but lost. He served 11 years of his sentence and was freed. He was represented by Daniel Watters, who maintained that two-thirds of the allegations were untrue.
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