The Sky is Falling!

In August 2020, the Ontario government announced plans to build the Eastern Ontario Correctional Complex on government-owned land. The land is part of the former agricultural college southeast of the urban part of North Grenville. The former college is now known as the Kemptville Campus.

Unsurprisingly, several North Grenville residents organized groups to oppose the correctional complex. The Jail Opposition Group and the Coalition Against the Proposed Prison made arguments against the correctional complex. One in particular troubles me. The Kemptville Campus is now home to several educational institutions, including elementary and secondary schools. The argument proffered is that a prison escape would endanger children on the campus.

Let’s consider probabilities – two specifically. We’ll start with a “when” scenario. Children are in school from about 8:00 am to 4:00 pm Monday through Friday. A school year in Ontario is 195 days. The total number of hours in a year is 8740 (365 days x 24 hours). The total number of hours children are on the campus is 1560 (195 days x 8 hours). Assuming an escape happening at any time of the day, the probability of such an event while children are in school is less than 18%.

Now consider a “where” scenario. Assume an escaping inmate flips a 360-sided coin to decide which way to go. The Kemptville Campus is on about a 30-degree arc if you drew a circle around the proposed correctional complex. Thus, there’s a one-in-twelve chance that the escapee passes through the Kemptville Campus while free.

Putting the “when” and “where” probabilities together, we have a .18 x .08 = 0.015 or 1.5% chance of an errant inmate crossing paths with a student. If you ask Google’s AI overview for an opinion of these odds, you’ll read they are very poor, “long-shot”, and “describe rare events.”

What can history tell us? The Canadian government published a study on escapes from federal custody between 2011 and 2017 in all regions of Canada. During this period, the records show 91 escapes from Correctional Service of Canada institutions. The study found that escapes occur more often in the evening hours (62%). Escapes occurred throughout the year, but were most common between July and September (35%). The most common identified motivation to escape, noted in 26% of cases, was to obtain contraband (usually tobacco). In most of these cases (21 of 24), the offender had returned or planned to return to the institution. These statistics significantly lower the probability of an escape occurring while children are on the campus and of an escapee picking the Kemptville Campus as a target destination because there are no stores on the campus.

I liken the opposition groups’ argument to the parable of fear in the “Chicken Little” folk tale. I note that neither of the two opposition groups mentioned the proximity – 100m to 400m from the schools – of a killer that is responsible for nearly 300 deaths each year in Canada.  That killer is a road (country road 44). Just under 300 pedestrians die from motor vehicle collisions. Many more are injured. Country Road 44 is far more insidious than the proposed correctional facility. Perhaps there’s no protest because it’s too late for NIBY: the road is already there.