Generally, when a person is sentenced for a crime, he's told to stay away from his victim.

But on Monday, a judge granted two young men a longer stay with the victim of their rage the territory's jail.

Serving inmates Clark Fry, 20, and Alexander Smarch, 21, had been looking at release dates in late June and early July respectively.

Yesterday, however, saw their stint at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre get a little longer with eight-month sentences for wilful damage over $5,000 to the aging institution.

Charges of attempting to escape the jail were stayed by the Crown.

The pair represents a quarter of the eight men charged after a brouhaha at WCC in late January that saw inmates of A Dorm trash their living quarters.

Another of the accused, Geno Charlie, has already pleaded guilty. His sentencing is set to conclude in his home community of Old Crow later this month.

Fry's and Smarch's sentences will be served concurrently with their current jail terms.

Along with the battering WCC took in January from inmates of A Dorm, the jail was slammed again Monday by the judge and a defence lawyer as being overcrowded and desperate for a replacement.

The dorm had 'perhaps too many men, presumably young men, accommodated in an overcrowded and worn-out facility, and this got out of hand,' said deputy Judge Cunliffe Barnett.

When looking at photos of the damaged living quarters, Barnett said: 'It's very obvious that these 12 men were being accommodated in a so-called dormitory that was never intended to house that many persons.'

Fry's defence lawyer, Nils Clarke, who heads up the Yukon's legal aid board, noted the small size of the dorm and pointed out there have been 'many stalled attempts at replacement' of WCC.

'Perhaps this group got a head start on the reconstruction,' said Clarke.

Built in 1967 for 30 to 40 people, said Clarke, WCC has been home to 80 or more inmates from time to time.

'It is an inadequate facility,' he said, pointing out the current government halted a prior administration's plans to rebuild.

'It is high time that takes place.'

The damage, while not minimal, couldn't be called extreme, the judge said, adding the incident couldn't be called 'particularly dangerous.'

'I don't mean to excuse this, but ... people who run correctional institutions understand that incidents of this nature will inevitably happen.'

The judge said he didn't think the inmates had any serious intentions to escape, given the extreme cold that night.

Replacement costs for the damage were $19,181, while labour for the repairs and additional staffing resulting from the temporary loss of A Dorm came to $31,000.

A drug search at an unusually late hour sparked the riot, the court heard.

At about 10:30 p.m. Jan. 24, jail staff thought they smelled marijuana in A Dorm, and removed the 12 male inmates during a search. After a half-hour and finding no pot, the inmates were let back in.

'Upon return to Dorm A, some inmates appeared agitated and were confrontational with the staff,' reads a court document outlining the facts.

Clarke said the foofaraw 'started off relatively small and escalated relatively quickly.'

Fry recalled staff taking away playing cards and chairs, and said corrections officers were 'provoking the situation' and showing some inflexibility, said Clarke.

'It likely takes two to tango as far as incidents coming to a head,' the lawyer noted later during Monday's hearing.

Dorm A has a sleeping area with bunk beds, with a shower and bathroom area attached. Those quarters are joined to a recreation room with a television and bench seating, by a short hallway. The dorm's entrance to the rest of the jail is located in the recreation room.

Shortly after the inmates were returned to the dorm following the fruitless search, staff saw chairs being thrown from the sleeping area into the TV room.

Jail guards removed the chairs and turned off the TV, which several inmates had been watching. Two inmates stayed in the recreation room.

The A Dorm inmates became increasingly agitated and yelled obscenities at staff.

A box filled with paper was lit on fire and slid along the floor from the sleeping area into the recreation area, but a 'liquid substance' was thrown at staff who went into the rec room to put out the flames.

The jail guards retrieved a fire hose and returned to douse the fire.

'During this time there was constant yelling from the sleeping area of Dorm A and the staff heard loud banging,' the court document said.

At 12:35 a.m., the two inmates who'd stayed in the TV room asked to be let out.

A table turned on end and a bed frame blocked the hall between the sleeping room and the TV room, preventing jail staff from seeing inside. The guards suspected from the noise that inmates were trying to break through an exterior wall, but weren't able to safely go in to see if they were right.

The guards tried to talk to the inmates by yelling from the dorm's entrance, and several times asked the men in A Dorm to come out.

'The response from within the dorm was a mix of derogatory comments and a refusal to leave,' the facts read.

Jail guards recognized two voices in the cacophony responding to them; one was Smarch's.

At one point, staff saw a small hole developing in the cinder block wall between A Dorm and the women's quarters. They hustled the women out, and once the male inmates realized staff were in the women's dorm, they stopped working on their hole and blocked it with a towel.

At 1:05 a.m., about an hour and a half after the tempest began, RCMP officers arrived.

Five minutes later, two other inmates were let out after asking to leave.

The yelling and banging inside the sleeping area continued, and police officers and jail guards began donning protective gear in preparation of entering the dorm.

Just before police and guards went in, at 1:20 a.m., the remaining eight inmates surrendered. It took three people to remove the barricade.

In the bedroom, three glass windows were smashed, letting in the -31 C cold air and leaving shattered glass all over the floor. The bars over the windows were still intact.

As well, one of the cement wall's two layers of cinder blocks was broken through, and bunk beds were damaged and ripped apart. Several magazines had been set on fire.

In the bathroom, sinks were torn off walls and smashed on the floor, laying alongside bits of damaged urinals. Doors leading to showers and toilets were also damaged.

Water from the damaged sinks and from fire hoses flowed freely out the door into the corridor.

Charges against the other five co-accused are still before the courts.