Ontario is ramping up its short-term plans to build new jail capacity, as well as a years-long plan to build hundreds of new beds, relying in part on conversions and modular buildings as the Ford government continues to lean into its tough-on-crime message.
Over the next seven years, the province plans to add more than 1,000 new beds to its correctional facilities, officials told Global News, with proposals recently drawn up to quickly add new spaces to a system that is over capacity.
The plan comes as the province increases its calls for bail reform at the federal level and criticism of judges who Progressive Conservative politicians claim are letting too many people out on bail.
The province has leaned into the issue of bail reform, in particular, appointing an associate minister to the file during the summer and promising to build new beds to accommodate stricter bail rules, if they are implemented by the federal government.
At the same time, data shows existing provincial facilities are over-capacity, with the majority of inmates awaiting trial, not serving sentences handed down by the courts.
“We have to follow the instructions of the courts that tell us who has to be in our facility and for how long,” Solicitor General Michael Kerzner told Global News.
“And that’s why we don’t want to have anybody who could be a violent and a repeat offender — and the premier spoke about this — destabilizing our community. We are never going to accept that.”
Critics argue the province’s strategy to keep building is unsustainable and that the money would be better spent clearing court backlogs to reduce the number of pre-trial incarcerations instead.
Building more jails
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has pushed a jail-first strategy for justice, promising to build more facilities to house people charged by police or found guilty by the courts and to address overcrowding.
Early in the year, in response to concerns about overcrowding, the premier said he would build “as many jails as we need to” in the province.
“I’m going to be building more jails and I’m not worried about the criminals,” Ford said in March, adding later that he had “directed” his solicitor general to build more jails.
“I’ll build as many jails as we need to put these criminals behind bars for a long time.”
Behind the scenes, an already-ambitious jail-building program appeared to ramp up.
Ontario currently has 8,531 jail beds across the province. By 2031, as a result of a series of renovations, modular builds and new projects, the government expects to have more than 9,700 beds.
Many of those new projects were already in the pipeline before Ford announced a plan to build more jails but others appear to have come after.
In particular, the conversion of two separate weekend holding facilities in Toronto and London which closed down during the pandemic to full-time jails was identified to offer a short-term boost.
The repurposing of a regional intermittence centre in London will add 110 beds by mid-2025, while a similar facility at the Toronto South Detention Centre will add 320 more beds by 2026.
“What we wanted to do was look at the physical assets that we presently have and find out the shortest steps required to see those open… and to have that extra capacity,” Kerzner said.
Ontario also plans to rely on modular builds to rapidly increase capacity within its jails. The predesigned and premade spaces come with 50 beds per modular build, with one already set up in Thunder Bay and another in Kenora.
An extra 50 female beds and 100 male beds are planned across three sites in prefabricated modular facilities, officials with the solicitor general’s office said. The new sites, they said, will add beds to existing facilities, where spaces like kitchens will be shared because they’re not included in the modular builds.
In addition, the province is hoping to complete its long-touted Thunder Bay Correctional facility in 2026 to replace beds that will be phased out in the northern hub city, along with plans to hand out a P3 private partnership contract to build 235 new beds at the Eastern Ontario Correctional Complex.
The next year, in 2027, the government is planning to finish consolidating a Brockville, Ont., facility onto another existing site. Ontario is expecting to add just over 1,200 new beds in total over roughly six years.
Capacity problems at existing sites
The ambitious building program comes as jails in Ontario struggle with capacity problems.
Data obtained by The Canadian Press shows on average last year jails in the province were operating at 113 per cent capacity. As of Sept. 30, 2023, there was an average of 8,889 people in provincial jails, well over the then-7,848-person capacity.
Most facilities were over capacity through the year, according to the report.
An overwhelming number of inmates held – 81 per cent, the government said – were also awaiting trial and presumptively innocent.
After the data was reported, Premier Ford said he would increase the number of jails.
“We’ll sit down with the solicitor general and follow through with the commitment of making sure that there’s more cells to keep these criminals in and supporting our correctional services officers,” he said.
Kerzner told Global News he would continue to add new capacity if it was needed.
“We’ll have room for you,” he said. “We’re not stopping when it comes to hiring more correctional officers, when it comes time to make other measures, we’re not going to stop.”
Court backlogs
The government’s plan to build more physical buildings puts the emphasis in the wrong place, critics argue, suggesting that fixing a significantly backlogged court system is a quicker, cheaper and fairer strategy.
Kristyn Wong-Tam, the NDP’s justice critic, said building new jails was not an efficient way to deal with overcrowding, given the number of people awaiting trial.
“The government has announced that they plan to build lots of jails, the problem with that plan is it’s not sustainable,” Wong-Tam told Global News.
“The government can continue to build as many jails as possible — that’s their prerogative, I don’t agree because at the end of the day, it’s going to cost us a lot more, it’s not a sustainable solution nor is it responsible. What they really need to do is invest money in the court system.”
Officials with the solicitor general’s office told Global News that, in addition to the plan for roughly 1,200 new beds by 2031, they are consistently looking for new land to acquire for future expansions.
Extra beds are also necessary, they said, so that renovations and repairs can take place, giving planners the capacity to move inmates around.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said that money needs to be spent alleviating overcrowding and conditions inside jails but said the government needed to be “not just tough on crime but actually smart on crime” through court changes.
“We absolutely need to deal with the conditions in our jails and our facilities — it is abhorrent and it needs to be addressed,” she said.
“The conditions are so deplorable that people are getting extra credit for time served and getting out earlier. But I would urge the government to start looking at what they can actually impact and effect, the court backlogs and delays are their responsibility and they have failed over and over again to address that.”
— with files from The Canadian Press