There are now more people in Canada serving time in provincial jails who have not been convicted of a crime than prisoners who have been found guilty
A report by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association says over 54 per cent of Canada’s 25,000 provincial inmates have never been convicted of anything. Rather, they have been “remanded” to custody, awaiting trial or a bail hearing.
The report is entitled “Set Up to Fail: Bail and the Revolving Door of Pre-trial Detention” It cites so-called “remand” statistics taken from 2012-13.
The report notes that Canada’s crime rate has been steadily falling for 20 years, but the country’s remand rate has nearly tripled over the past 30 years. Nine years ago, it says, the number of remanded inmates passed the number prisoners found guilty of crimes. The number continues to grow.
The report says most of the people remanded to provincial jail “are there for non-violent offences, and one in five people are there simply because they failed to comply with a bail or probation condition.”
The report also says the increasing numbers are costing taxpayers a small fortune. For example, one day at a provincial jail in Ontario costs $183.
One of the co-authors of the report is Abby Deshman. She is lawyer with the Canadian Civil Liberties Agency in Toronto. I spoke with her by phone from her office in Toronto.
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