Ontario jails are heading toward a record year for overcrowding, remand populations and lockdowns just as politicians debate bail reforms that could lead to a further influx of accused behind bars, data analyzed by CBC News reveals.
In the first six months of 2025, the jail population averaged 10,800 prisoners, while the province’s jails had a maximum capacity of approximately 8,500 beds.
But most surprising to those who reviewed the data CBC analyzed is the 38 per cent jump in the average number of women incarcerated from 2019 to 2024.
“It’s certainly shocking and alarming to see the huge growth in the number of women,” said Nicole Myers, an associate professor of criminology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.
There are still proportionally more men than women in Ontario jails — roughly nine out of every 10 prisoners is a man.
The data, obtained through freedom of information requests to Ontario’s Ministry of the Solicitor General, breaks down jail populations and lockdowns held in 24 provincial institutions in operation between January 2019 and July 2025.
The figures show close to 82 per cent of all prisoners detained last year were on remand — meaning pre-trial and legally innocent — compared to 74 per cent in 2019.
The highest remand rate is for women — who statistically are accused of fewer violent crimes. More than 85 per cent of women in Ontario jails were on remand in 2024. By comparison, 81 per cent of men were in pre-trial detention.
Researchers, lawyers and advocates say these findings call into question claims made by federal and provincial politicians that Canada’s bail system is too lenient and is a “revolving door” for violent criminals.
They also warn the intention behind “jail not bail” reforms — to crack down on crime — might ultimately fail, as a growing number of judges have already stayed cases or given shorter sentences because of human rights violations stemming from the growing crisis in Ontario jails.
“When serious charges are stayed for any reason, then that runs the risk of impacting the confidence of the public in the administration of justice,” said Lesley Pasquino, head of the Ontario Crown Attorneys’ Association.
The proposed federal reforms are aimed at making it more difficult for repeat and violent offenders to get bail. This push came after high-profile cases in which those accused were out on bail.
“I think this data in so many ways provides a contradictory narrative to what is sort of very commonly being put out there,” said Myers, who examined CBC’s findings.
“It clearly demonstrates that we don’t have a lenient bail system, that we are incarcerating thousands and thousands of legally innocent people and that this continues to grow.”
‘Very dehumanizing’ conditions
Sue, a former prisoner, pulls a thick, dog-eared scrapbook from her bag. It’s filled with journal entries, drawings, official forms, letters — disturbing details of a life inside an Ontario jail. CBC is not publishing her real name to protect her safety.
Charged with drug possession, then charged again with breaching bail conditions of a court-imposed curfew, the now 46-year-old grandmother was jailed for four months in late 2020 and early 2021 awaiting trial.
She became one of the 3,379 women sent to an Ontario facility on remand between 2019 and 2024.
Suffering from alcoholism and a drug dependency, Sue said she’d formed relationships with dangerous people who enabled her drug use and dealing. Her life spiralled.
“Within a six-month period of time, I went from having no record at all to being in OCDC three times,” she said, referring to the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, where roughly 87 per cent of prisoners were on remand in 2024.
Sue describes overcrowded dorms, cold and filthy cells, black mould in the bathrooms, lockdowns that lasted several days and being surrounded by women going through drug withdrawal or mental health breakdowns.
“You’re making people sicker while they’re in there,” she said. “Most of the people that I met when I was incarcerated were not evil people.”
But many, she said, were victims of trauma and violence, including herself.
“The conditions within that place then become very dehumanizing and create more trauma,” she said. “I saw four or five of the same Indigenous women that would get out and get back in.”
There is a revolving door in Canada’s jail system, but according to Sen. Kim Pate, it’s not primarily for violent criminals.
“Disproportionately those would be Indigenous women … poor women … women who have experienced violence,” said Pate, former executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies.
The single highest occupancy rate was at the Vanier Centre for Women in Milton — Ontario’s only jail exclusively for women. Last June, Vanier reported an occupancy rate of nearly 156 per cent, which amounts to 289 prisoners in a space with 185 beds.
System ‘at a breaking point’
As of last summer, Ontario housed 3,000 more inmates than three years ago.
Twenty-two of 24 facilities were over capacity last June.
“The truth is that we don’t really have any space. We don’t have anywhere to put people,” said Chad Oldfield, a correctional officer for 20 years who represents the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which is in contract talks with the government.
“It really does highlight what we have been ringing the alarm bells on. It’s highlighting a system that’s at a breaking point, right? We’re in crisis.”
Three jails in the province have been continuously operating over capacity for nearly four years: the Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton, the South West Detention Centre in Windsor and the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre in London.
Half of lockdowns tied to staffing shortages
CBC’s findings also point to another immediate crisis behind bars — a growing increase in lockdowns. In fact, this year is gearing up to be a record year for inmates being locked in cells for hours or days.
More than 1,600 lockdowns were reported between January and June. The average number of lockdowns for the same period over the previous five years is closer to 1,100.
More than half of the lockdowns documented by the government in the first half of 2025 were attributed to staffing shortages and labour issues.
“This means we do not have the ability to properly staff the institutions that we currently operate,” said Myers.
But the Ontario government says it has a plan for staffing.
“We’re hiring thousands of new correctional officers,” Solicitor General Michael Kerzner said in a media conference on Nov. 24.
Oldfield said the government is hiring contract workers, not full-time employees, and without job security and benefits, the jails can’t retain correctional officers.
$2.6B for jails
Kerzner declined CBC’s request for an interview to discuss the ministry’s data.
At the media conference on Nov. 24, he said: “We will be very, very aggressive in opening up new jails because in the end of the day, that means that if a person gets arrested, I have a place for them.”
Since 2017, the province has announced a dozen expansions or new buildings at a cost of more than $2.6 billion. Those projects could house approximately 1,600 additional inmates.
Many of those projects won’t be completed for several years. In eastern Ontario, a new jail meant to ease overcrowding at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre won’t be finished until at least late 2032.
“Investing that kind of money into community resources will go far further and help all kinds of folks and have a much bigger impact on preventing crime,” said Myers.
But the provincial and federal governments say they want to make neighbourhoods safer by having stricter bail rules.
“We’re getting violent criminals and repeat offenders off the streets,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said in October when he announced the upcoming Bail and Sentencing Reform Act.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also pitched his own Jail not Bail Act this fall, pointing to crimes, including one involving a B.C. woman allegedly killed by her ex-husband just hours after he was released on bail for assault.
Both proposals included the concept of a “reverse onus” — which would force those charged with serious offences, such as break and enter, violent car theft and sexual assault, to argue why they should get bail and not stay on remand in jail.
The Ontario government says it will introduce tougher legislation aimed at repeat offenders, following growing concerns about people with extensive criminal records being released on bail. The province’s new strategy is intended to strengthen compliance with bail conditions and increase deterrence.
The changes are backed by the Ontario government, which has announced its own plan.
Ontario Attorney General Doug Downey promises a “tough on crime bail reform strategy that will strengthen the rules, reinforce compliance and keep violent and repeat offenders off the streets.”
While Statistics Canada doesn’t have numbers on how many accused people released on bail go on to commit crimes, the department does have data that show crime rates were down slightly last year.
‘It is absolutely politics’
Ottawa defence lawyer Ewan Lyttle says those who think denying people bail is being “tough on crime” don’t understand what’s been happening in Ontario courts.
Lyttle said he routinely asks prisoners he represents to document overcrowding, lockdowns and violence.
“I can tell you that judges are very receptive to the information,” said Lyttle, president of the Defence Counsel Association of Ottawa. “Ultimately they’re not going to stay in jail…. The courts aren’t going to want to be seen as complicit with the conditions of the jail.”
CBC’s Julie Ireton speaks to Ewan Lyttle, president of the Defence Counsel Association of Ottawa, about his clients who are in the provincial jail system.
Pasquino, head of the Ontario Crown Attorneys’ Association, says it’s not the Crown’s role to keep people in jail for as long as possible and to “get convictions at whatever cost.”
“The jails are part of the criminal justice system. And what I cannot emphasize strongly enough is that the entire criminal justice system needs to be well-resourced.”
9:07Ontario to pay settlement for ‘inhumane’ jail lockdowns
Human rights lawyer Paul Champ explains the lockdown practices inside Ontario jails that led the province to reach a $59-million settlement in a class action on behalf of inmates who were affected by the practice.
Pate said bail reforms may feed the political agenda, but do not address the issues and may actually create more problems down the road.
“It is absolutely politics. There is no other explanation for it, when all the evidence points the other way.”
The CBC’s Julie Ireton speaks to Independent Sen. Kim Pate, former executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, about the expansion of Ontario jails.
‘Jail saved my life’
Sue pleaded guilty to drug charges and was sentenced to house arrest. She has since graduated from high school and enrolled in a social service worker program at college.
“I committed crimes and those crimes put me into jail. When I’m in jail I don’t need to be ripped apart and retraumatized way more than I was before I went in. That’s not going to help me. That’s going to make me have more problems.”
The CBC’s Julie Ireton speaks to a former prisoner about her time inside the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre.
Sue said going to jail meant she was “bumped up” the list for affordable housing, drug counselling and access to social workers.
But she wishes she and others didn’t have to be incarcerated in inhumane conditions in order to get clean, sober and housed.
“Going to jail saved my life, but it also was very, very traumatic in many ways.”
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METHODOLOGY: HOW CBC ANALYZED ONTARIO JAIL DATA Through freedom of information requests, CBC News obtained data from the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General representing jail population, operational capacity and institutional lockdowns for Jan. 1, 2019, to July 1, 2025. Breakdowns representing populations by gender and by legal status (e.g. on remand, sentenced, immigration, federal and other circumstances) were only provided from January 2019 to December 2024. Our analysis focused on the 24 jails that were operating consistently over the past six years. Three facilities (intermittent centres at the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre and Toronto South Detention Centre, along with the Ontario Correctional Institute) were closed at various times since 2019 and excluded from the analysis. To calculate the estimated number of prisoners on remand per month and per jail, CBC divided the monthly total number of incarceration days by the number of days in each month. That method was confirmed to be accurate in a further email exchange with the ministry. To fairly compare jails based on capacity, CBC used their occupancy rate: a jail was considered “over capacity” when the estimated number of inmates incarcerated in a month divided by the operational capacity exceeded 100 per cent. Research and data compilation: Julie Ireton, CBC News (July-November 2025) |
