An alternative to building more jails

Ontario’s jails are overwhelmed and overcrowded. Our premier’s answer is to build more, an idea as far removed from the ideal solution as was his Greenbelt fiasco.

The vast majority of spaces in Ontario’s jails are occupied by individuals who are technically innocent, awaiting bail or trial. Another portion is made up of individuals with untreated mentalhealth disorders whose behaviour has resulted in criminal convictions.

A wise premier would look, not at accommodating these ridiculous conditions, but instead at the root causes of the problem.

That premier would initiate significant improvements in treatment of mental health to help those who need it.

Preventive actions such as this would empty a number of jail spaces and would have the added benefit of opening up court time and resources to process more bail and trial hearings.

Appointing more judges and court staff would move many more cases through the system and reduce the strain on jails, as well as releasing more innocent people currently incarcerated.

Replacing archaic drug policies with safe supply processes would also help significantly in removing many individuals from the justice stream.

These three strategies would eliminate the need for any new jail spaces, but would also free up police from social work involvement and deploy them instead to deal with real criminals.

It costs more than $1 billion to build a single jail. That money would be far better spent implementing socially progressive, evidence-based and proven policies that would benefit all Ontarians.