After three men at the Whitehorse jail beat up another inmate so badly he required stitches, the Justice department says staff do their best to identify “problems” between inmates and keep them apart.

“The safety and well-being of correctional staff and the offenders who are sentenced or remanded to the Whitehorse Correctional Centre is of paramount importance to Yukon Corrections,” said spokesman Tyler Plaunt.

The attack took place April 17 in a common area at the jail.

Two men, Benjamin Michel Harper and Robert Grant Gilbert, have since pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm.

A third man, Joshua Landon Saskiw, pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon – a weighted sock.

Saskiw and Gilbert also pleaded guilty to a jail breach, meaning they either broke out of their cells into the common area or disobeyed orders to stay in their cells.

Harper has pleaded not guilty to the jail breach.

The victim, Jeffery Paul Redick, was taken to Whitehorse General Hospital, where he received stitches.

Harper, Saskiw and Gilbert were among eight people arrested in connection with a robbery at Kustom Phone Repairs in downtown Whitehorse in February.

According to police, two men entered the store with a machete and baton and fled with an undisclosed amount of cash.

Harper has since pleaded guilty to robbery, as did a co-accused, James Alexander Graham. Graham was sentenced to 36 months. Harper hasn’t been sentenced yet.

Conspiracy to commit robbery charges against Saskiw and another accused, Adam Joseph Desbarres, were stayed by the Crown.

A preliminary hearing for the other suspects, including Gilbert, is set for December.

Redick, on the other hand, is one of 12 suspects arrested in connection with three raids in Whitehorse in March.

He faces 17 charges, including cocaine trafficking and weapons possession offences.

Within each group of suspects, no-contact orders were imposed after they made their first appearances in court.

Plaunt wouldn’t comment specifically on any challenges of managing these two groups, but he said jail staff interview accused people and offenders on their way into the jail to identify any issues that may exist between inmates.

“If conflicts are identified between a group of people or two groups of people, and you can’t keep them on separate units because of no-contact orders or things like that, then other measures are taken,” Plaunt said.

This could include separate unlock schedules, so inmates are outside of their cells at different times, or “administrative segregation,” used when an inmate’s safety is at risk.

Fights and other violent incidents are generally unpredictable and happen occasionally at the jail, but correctional officers are trained in de-escalation tactics and act quickly when violence occurs, he said.

For his role in the assault against Redick, Saskiw was sentenced last month to one year, plus three months for the jail breach.

With credit given for time served, he’ll spend about another six months in custody.

Harper and Gilbert have not been sentenced yet.