OTTAWA — One in five is serving a life sentence for murder.

A growing majority is battling the demons of drug addiction and mental illness, and a soaring number belong to an aboriginal, Asian, biker or street gang fighting for survival.

Canada's powder keg prisons are bursting at the seams with increasingly violent, sick and aging inmates — and new Conservative tough-on-crime measures could put even more behind bars.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said penal systems around the globe — most notably in the U.S. — are grappling with dramatically different and more dangerous offender populations. Last year alone, some 1,656 inmates — about 8.3% — recorded 2,258 injuries from attacks, self-harm or accidents in Canadian penitentiaries.

"Violence in the institution is a reflection of growing violence on the street. We continue to see violent crime at unacceptably high levels," Toews told QMI Agency.

Prison guards and offender advocates worry tougher sentences and other Tory crime-busting initiatives will lead to more overcrowding, more tension and more violence behind bars. But while Toews sees a potential rise in numbers in the short term, he believes tough measures will act as a deterrent to "moderate" criminal behaviour and stabilize the inmate population over the long haul.

"We're not creating new criminals — we're ensuring that the criminals who are convicted actually serve their time," he said. "So instead of spending holidays outside the prison between relatively short sentences, they remain there consistently."

Toews said new cell units at existing facilities will likely accommodate any rise in numbers, and promised a renewed focus on programs to rehabilitate offenders.

But Pierre Mallette, national president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, said attacks, suicides, riots, bomb threats and drug busts are a threat of daily life and he worries adding more cons to the mix will fuel the violence. Zip guns, knives and bare hands are the weapons of choice for inmates, while prison guards were only recently awarded the right to carry pepper spray as a tool for defence.

A prevalence of booze, drugs and mental health issues is putting a strain on the system, and Mallette said managing the dangerous, gang-riddled populations is becoming increasingly complex.

"In the past, there was a certain code of respect — that is not there any more," he said.

Kevin Grabowsky, an Alberta correctional officer with 30 years experience, said constant tension boils to "spikes" in violence — often related to gangs fighting for control. At last count by the Correctional Service of Canada, 15.6% of inmates identified as a gang member.

"We are forced to segregate our populations more and more, but the problem with that is that we have a harder time employing them and keeping them busy all day," Grabowsky said. "Gang mentality is a bad thing to begin with, and now you have a whole bunch of criminals with it, in one spot."

Craig Jones, executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada, blames the war on drugs for escalating problems in prisons.

"What we are seeing is the fulfillment of the promise of drug prohibition," he said. "We're seeing more people with gang affiliations — that's a consequence of the fact 102 years of drug prohibition has brought about the proliferation of drug-trafficking gangs. I view this as the chickens coming home to roost."

Gang affiliation inside and on the street gives people — from aboriginal kids to drug-trafficking bikers — status, protection and money they can't get in "straight" society, Jones said.

"When politicians get tough on crime, it has the perversely opposite effect of cementing the coherence and integrity of these crime gangs, because they now have a common enemy," he said. "They can unify with each other and with other gangs against the cops."

But while CSC takes steps to suppress recruitment and separate gangs, he said controls are limited. Overcrowding in a confined, high-anxiety environment will drive more inmates to seek the "sanctuary" of a gang, he said.

And the bigger question of tough-on-crime measures is not only short-term safe management of prisons, but public safety when the inmates are released from harsher environments with fewer rehabilitation programs, Jones said.

"I think the question should be not so much who goes in, but what are they like when they come out?"

Federal correctional investigator Howard Sapers also points to the phenomenon of younger, more violent inmates housed with older offenders grappling with geriatric health and social problems posing new challenges to the system.

"You have a dynamic in correctional facilities where you have to have physical capacity to deal with people who have mobility issues and cognitive issues, and you also have to have capacity to deal with a much younger population who are generally more active and when released into society will be re-entering the workforce," he said.

Adding more inmates to the existing mix of gang members and offenders with HIV, hepatitis C and substance abuse is a recipe for fewer rehabilitation programs and bigger problems down the road, he said.

"One thing we know about prisons is that when they become crowded and there's a strain on resources, violence goes up, grievances go up and the correctional climate deteriorates," he said.

kathleen.harris@sunmedia.ca