The Whitehorse RCMP's drunk tank, where a Carmacks man died in 2008 under circumstances which shocked and angered many in the territory, is closing.

The Yukon government and the RCMP yesterday announced the building of a "secure assessment centre” which will replace the holding cells at the Whitehorse police detachment. The facility will be added on to the new jail currently under construction on Range Road, and is scheduled to open in the spring of 2012.

The creation of the facility is one of dozens of recommendations coming out of two reports – a review of the Yukon's police force and the results of a task force on acutely intoxicated people – released this week.

The police review and the task force were prompted by the deaths of Raymond Silverfox and Robert Stone. Silverfox died after being held in RCMP cells for more than 13 hours. He was violently ill the entire time he was there, but was never given any medical attention. He was dragged from his cell when an officer noticed he was no longer moving. He was not breathing and had no heart beat. Silverfox, 43, was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Stone died in the Sarah Steele Building detox centre in May 2010. He was first picked up by paramedics, became violent and was arrested, then taken back to emergency and released. He died a few hours later after checking into detox. A coroner's inquest into his death has been called, but not scheduled.

"It's unfortunate that it took two peoples' deaths to really deal with the issues, but I think this is a real opportunity to change the way we deal with people with addictions,” James Allen, Champagne-Aishihik chief and co-author of the acutely intoxicated report said today. "... We have to start dealing with them in a humane way – with dignity and respect.”

The new holding centre will offer 24-hour medical care in the form of registered nurses and specially trained guards, and will draw on the jail's resources such as the kitchen, laundry, interview rooms and secure medical wards. It will also allow corrections officers to keep women and youth completely separate from male prisoners, which the police cannot do in their current cell block.

There is no word yet on how many people the new building will be able to hold.

Once built, the secure facility will house almost all those who are now going into RCMP cells after being arrested. Although the so-called secure assessment centre was inspired by the problem of chronic, hard-core alcoholics who draw heavily on police and hospital resources, it will also house sober prisoners.

As RCMP spokesman Sgt. Don Rogers noted today, "a large portion” of the people usually found in the RCMP cell block are intoxicated.

Meanwhile, the RCMP will do a scaled-back version of previously planned upgrades to the existing cells at their Fourth Avenue headquarters. Those holding cells will still be used for various purposes, including holding suspects for questioning during the first hours of an investigation, Rogers noted.

In that "infrequent” scenario, prisoners will be guarded by corrections officers instead of the commissionaires who currently work in the RCMP cell block, according to Justice spokesman Dan Cable.

The centre was hailed as a huge step forward by all the officials present at a media briefing on the facility held today.

Deputy ministers Dennis Cooley (Justice) and Stu Whitley (Health and Social Services) both defended the decision to add the facility to the jail, rather than build a whole new facility downtown, as has been done in Winnipeg, where a similar facility is right next door to a detox centre and a shelter.

It's a matter of using what the Yukon has now, assistant deputy minister of Justice Bob Riches said. "We are essentially able to hook on to the side of this building and hook into the various services it offers,” he said.

The jail is a huge expense for the territory, and offers state-of-the-art security, he said, and it should be used to its full extent rather than thinning resources out around the city.

A "sobering facility” will likely be built downtown in the next few years, Whitley noted, but moving the care of prisoners from the RCMP cells to a place that can offer medical services needed to be done as soon as possible.

"It's a great first step, said Dr. Bruce Beaton, who worked with Allen on the report on acutely intoxicated people, and recommended a downtown sobering centre for people detained under the Liquor Act.

Currently the responsibility for dealing with addicted people "is pegged on law enforcement,” he said. "We need to swing that pendulum toward health care.”

The Yukon government has budgeted $3.5 million for the additional work to be done on the jail, although the final amount has not been approved by the legislature.