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The punishment also needed to reflect the “disgraceful” conditions the man endured in provincial jail, where he was triple-bunked and frequently locked in his cell for whole days.

The causes of these persistent problems at the jail may be complex, the judge said. “But the bottom line is this: it is inhumane” and “unworthy of us as a society.”

Explaining his decision last November to shave six months off the man’s sentence because of the harsh conditions, Justice Gibson said the province has both a “moral and legal imperative” to improve its jails — “urgently.”

The situation may have been urgent in the judge’s eyes, but for Ontario’s government the case was just another to add to the pile.

In courts across the province, judges are routinely reducing criminal sentences due to inhumane jail conditions. In case after case, using increasingly dire language, they have urged the province to address the problem.

“The government’s response to these criticisms has been to do nothing,” Justice P. Andras Schreck said in a ɫɫ�� court last September as he reduced the sentence of a man who pleaded guilty to aggravated assault.

As Premier Doug Ford continues to call for bail reforms that would see more people incarcerated while awaiting trial, provincial jails are more deadly, more violent and arguably more dysfunctional than they have ever been. Ontario’s ombudsman described the province’s correctional system as being “in a state of growing crisis.”

Criminals are serving shorter sentences as a result, as judges repeatedly try to send the message that the conditions behind bars are unacceptable by giving inmates extra credit for the time they spend in pretrial custody. (The vast majority of inmates in provincial jails — roughly four out of every five — are awaiting trial and legally innocent.)

Adding more people to an already overburdened system will likely lead to more inmate deaths, more violence behind bars and more criminals being released early.

‘Persisting, institutionalized, human rights violations’

The problems are not isolated to one or a few facilities. Jails from Ottawa to Windsor are overcrowded and understaffed, plagued by near-daily lockdowns and widespread triple-bunking, while also dealing with more assaults, more suicides and more drug overdoses than ever before.

A Star analysis of sentencing decisions, jail occupancy data, and internal statistics on rising violence behind bars show a provincial jail system that has been allowed to deteriorate to such a degree that it is now at a breaking point. Meanwhile, legislation intended to make desperately needed reforms sits on the shelf.

Ontario’s Solicitor General, Michael Kerzner, who oversees the ministry responsible for provincial jails, declined to be interviewed for this story. His office also did not answer written questions.

In a short statement, a Kerzner spokesperson said the Ford government is making “record investments” in corrections to ensure the safety of staff and inmates.

“This includes over $500 million to build new facilities, repair and expand existing ones, enhance screening measures, and hire more corrections staff.”

In provincial courts, however, the condemnation from judges continues to mount.

Decrying the conditions at Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ont., Justice Brenda Green said in an Oshawa court that she and her colleagues were “routinely presented with evidence of persisting, institutionalized, human rights violations” at the jail.

Green listed the “deplorable” conditions: routine lockdowns that can last for days; irregular access to showers and clean clothes; lack of fresh air.

“The only means to protect the integrity of the administration of justice is through repeated judicial denunciation of this entrenched, systemic abuse.”

Ontario’s jails are overcapacity

Almost all of Ontario’s 25 jails are overcrowded. The only ones that aren’t are treatment centres and small jails in the north.

The province is incarcerating about 2,000 more inmates than its jails are built to hold, according to internal data from December obtained by the Star via freedom-of-information laws.

Maplehurst, the province’s most overcrowded jail, is operating at roughly 145-per-cent capacity. Seven other jails are at more than 130 per cent, while the system-wide average is 123 per cent.

This means more triple-bunking in cells meant for two people. When inmates are triple-bunked, the third person sleeps on a mattress on the floor, with either their head or their feet abutting the toilet.

“It just adds to the already enormous amount of tension,” said Rene Pearle, a former inmate who was triple-bunked for several months last year. “You don’t even have enough room for a push-up. You’re constantly on your bunk. You’re on your bunk or you’re stepping on the third guy.”

The union representing correctional officers said when jails are this overcrowded it’s challenging to “maintain a safe environment” for inmates and staff.

“When the same number of staff have to supervise up to twice as many inmates, it’s impossible to monitor everything that is happening everywhere,” said Janet Laverty, chair of OPSEU’s corrections bargaining unit.

This leads to more lockdowns, during which inmates are confined to their cells, sometimes for days, with limited or no access to showers, phones or visits.

Inmates have told the Star in interviews that overcrowding and lockdowns increase tension and aggression between inmates, leading to more fights.

The province has plans to add more than 1,000 beds to its jails by 2031, according to reporting by .

Even if the new beds were added today, the system would still be another thousand short.

Extra time-served credit for harsh conditions becoming routine

When sentencing, a judge can give extra credit for time spent in pretrial detention if the conditions are deemed to be “particularly harsh.”

A Pembroke judge gave a man who pleaded guilty to criminal harassment and possessing child pornography credit for twice as many days in pretrial custody at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre because the man was triple-bunked 80 per cent of the time and locked down on more than 60 per cent of his days.

This is sometimes called “Duncan” credit, named after an Ontario Court of Appeal in 2016 that affirmed the practice.

Duncan credits have become routine, a Hamilton judge said in 2023, “due to the Ministry of the Solicitor General’s steadfast refusal to address the systemic problems that justify it.”

The province does not track how often “Duncan” credit is given, so it’s impossible to quantify how many criminal sentences have been reduced because of jail conditions.

The Star reviewed dozens of sentencing decisions for inmates at the province’s 10 most populous jails and found “Duncan” credit regularly factoring into sentences.

Lisa Kerr, a law professor at Queen’s University, said the extra credit for harsh conditions is necessary to ensure fairness in sentencing. But given how long it typically takes to get to trial, the extra credit means that many of those in pretrial custody have reached a “time-served” position before their trial begins — meaning that even if they were to plead or be found guilty, there would be no sentence left to serve. Some may even plead guilty simply to be released from jail, which does a disservice both to the public and the person being sentenced, Kerr said.

“It is very dysfunctional from a public safety perspective to have offenders do most or all of their custodial time in pretrial confinement,” she said in an email. “(Provincial jails) are not rehabilitative places. They do not help people gain the stability and insight they may need.”

If politicians genuinely cared about public safety, Kerr added, they would reduce court delays and improve jail conditions, which would allow offenders to serve their full sentences and increase opportunities for rehabilitation.

Jail staff suffered record number of assaults

On Dec. 20, 2023, a Maplehurst inmate sucker-punched a guard, breaking his orbital bone and sending him to hospital.

That attack set off a chain of events that is still reverberating today, as the province deals with the widening legal fallout from the decision by jail officials to carry out a collective punishment against the remaining inmates.

The punch was also just one of a record number of assaults suffered by jail staff that year.

There were 957 inmate-on-staff assaults across the province in 2023 — a 42-per-cent increase compared to five years earlier — according to ministry data.

The correctional officers’ union blames the increase in violence on overcrowding, understaffing and “the lack of meaningful consequences” for inmates.

“When our members feel like they are a punching bag for inmates and don’t have the support of their employer, it adds to the strain of an already stressful working environment,” said Laverty, the union representative.

She added that the rise in assaults has negatively impacted recruitment and retention of staff.

Assaults between inmates have also shot up. Ministry data show there were more than 500 inmate-on-inmate assaults per month last year. Like the assaults on staff, assaults between inmates have increased 40 per cent since 2018.

The increased violence means more correctional officers are being injured at work, which cause “additional staffing pressures where we are already spread thin,” Laverty said.

A 2019 found that “high absenteeism” among correctional officers had led to more lockdowns and millions in overtime costs. Provincial auditors found the average number of sick days taken by correctional officers in 2018 to be 31 days. That figure has declined to 22 days, according to ministry data obtained by the Star in a freedom-of-information request. But lockdowns due to staffing shortages haven’t abated.

“We reject the position that the Auditor General took regarding our sick time,” Laverty said.

Correctional officers in Ontario receive six sick days at full pay, followed by 124 days at 75-per-cent pay, and another 66 days at 66-per-cent pay.

“These are negotiated benefits that our members require due to the working conditions within corrections,” Laverty said. “Our jobs are dangerous, stressful, and congregate care settings expose our members to more illnesses.”

Laverty said roughly 40 per cent of correctional officers are part-time contract workers, and this contributes to the staffing deficiencies.

“This type of staffing model does not exist in any other large public safety organization in Ontario and is detrimental to the recruitment and retention of Correctional Officers,” she said.

Kerzner and his ministry did not respond to questions about Laverty’s comments.

Reform legislation has sat on the shelf

The Ford government says it inherited the problems with provincial jails from the previous Liberal government. It also inherited from them a piece of legislation intended to fix it.

The Correctional Services Transformation Act, passed by Kathleen Wynne’s government, received royal assent on May 7, 2018. Ford was elected a month later, and the act has been sitting on the shelf ever since. Despite being passed by the Legislature it was never proclaimed into force.

“That was a choice that was made for reasons that have never been entirely clear to me,” said Howard Sapers, who led a two-year review of Ontario’s corrections system that laid the groundwork for the new legislation.

Among the changes that would have taken place if the act was proclaimed would be establishing minimum standards for inmate living conditions, including access to natural light, fresh air, clean bedding and at least two in-person visits per week; strict rules for the use of segregation and strip searches; improved access to “evidence-based” programs supporting rehabilitation and reintegration; and more oversight of lockdown decisions.

Maybe most significant of all, the act would have created an independent inspector general for corrections who would investigate jail conditions, publicly report findings, and be empowered to issue directions to the ministry.

Sapers, a former Correctional Investigator of Canada and among the country’s leading experts in corrections policy, described the “abandoned” legislation as a missed opportunity for the province.

The problems his review identified — overcrowding, staff shortages, inadequate programs — have all become worse in the last seven years, Sapers said.

“Is legislation on its own enough to change the dial? No, but would the situation be better today if that legislation had been proclaimed into force? Absolutely.”

He added that the independent oversight created by the act would have marked a significant shift in culture and policy, “leading not only to improved correctional outcomes, but also to a better work environment for staff and a safer custody setting for prisoners.”

Kerzner and his ministry did not respond to questions about why the government has not proclaimed the legislation.

Justice Green, the Oshawa judge, referred to the dormant act in , remarking on the years it has spent unenforced.

“In the meantime, the mistreatment of presumptively innocent inmates continues unabated.”