Bowden Institution was locked down on Friday morning after a series of fights among inmates broke out over the last week.
Dan Spiller, a spokesman for the Correctional Service of Canada, said the one-on-one fights were all isolated incidents and no one was injured.
“It wasn’t a big disturbance or anything like that.”
The lockdown was ordered about 8 a.m. for the “continued safety and security of public staff and inmates.” A thorough search of the prison will be done based on intelligence information gathered by corrections officers, said Spiller.
“It’s not an uncommon practice.”
Corrections officers are still looking into the rash of fights to see what might be behind them.
“That’s actually what we’re trying to determine a little more. It could be just normal isolated incidents that occur all the time.
“But we have to monitor this 100 per cent of the time, and if we feel there’s potential for something to escalate further we have to maintain the safety of all and that’s why we chose to do this.”
Spiller said the lockdown affects only the medium-security portion of the prison housing 564 inmates. A minimum-security annex and its 76 prisoners are not included.
All prison visits have been cancelled until the search is completed.
The target is to have the prison re-opened by Tuesday, but the warden makes the final call on when it is safe to return to the normal routine.