Hey, it's Nancy. Before we begin today, I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to

Crime Beat early and add free on Amazon Music included with Prime. If you've ever watched shows like PRISM Break or Orange is the New Black,

you probably have an idea of what life behind bars is like, or at least a dramatized version of it.

In reality, there are different types of custody, from remand to jail to prison. I'm Nancy Hicks, a senior crime

reporter for Global News. Today on Crime Beat, I take you inside the facilities that house inmates in Alberta

and give you an exclusive look at what life is like through the eyes of a veteran

correctional officer.

This is inside corrections.

Patty Cole has spent most of her adult life working with the Alberta Provincial

System.

She started working as a Correctional Peace Officer when she was just 19 years old in 1986.

First in the southern Alberta city of Lethbridge, then in Calgary.

In 1998, she took on management of high-risk offenders, primarily sex offenders,

until 2009.

That's when she became the deputy director of programs at a correctional facility that currently holds the largest sentenced male population in Alberta.

Since 2012, she's worked as an investigator, conducting internal audits and reviews of incidents inside

provincial facilities. She retired from corrections in June of 2022.

Patty Cole is familiar with almost all of the cases I've shared on Crime Beat,

because once someone is arrested in Alberta, while they're awaiting trial, they go to remand.

Patty is here to walk us through that process.

I think first what we need to do is talk a little bit about what specifically it

means to work in a provincial correctional services because you know a lot of people would watch TV or movies and they see jail as jail, right?

...