Tensions run high at overcrowded South West Detention Centre

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Tensions are high, lockdowns are common, and inmates are sleeping on the floor at South West Detention Centre, amid chronic overcrowding at a jail that was supposed to solve such problems. 

Inmate Ryan Langlois, recently arrested after leaving his house while wearing an ankle bracelet, said he spent most of his first month back in jail locked down in a two-person cell with three people. 

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“Not allowed out of the cell, no phone calls, no showers,” Langlois, 32, told the Windsor Star during a rare chance to make a phone call. “The only difference between this jail and the old jail is the old jail was dirty. This jail is clean. Other than that, it’s ridiculously overcrowded.” 

Many entwined in the criminal justice chain, from inmates and their lawyers to corrections officers, agree the problem has been ballooning for years in a system that is understaffed and overwhelmed.  

OPSEU Local 135 president Katrina DiGiacinto, who represents corrections officers at the local jail, said increasing workloads, sick time, workplace injuries, and burnout are compounding staff shortages. 

“We continue to ask for more staffing, but it feels like sometimes that falls on deaf ears,” said DiGiacinto. “We’re struggling. The counts of inmates continue to go up, but the staffing levels remain the same.” 

She said the staff shortages lead to ongoing lockdowns because there are not enough officers to handle the growing number of prisoners. 

“Overcrowding persists in the jail,” said DiGiacinto. 

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According to the latest provincial data, there were 33,571 inmates in custody in Ontario between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023.

Of those, 20,781 unique individuals spent at least one day in a unit that was regularly locked down for 17 hours or more per day. The province calls it restrictive confinement. 

There were 1,393 people at South West Detention Centre who spent time in restrictive confinement.  

Langlois said that between Sept. 1 and Sept. 9, when he talked to the Star, he was allowed out of his cell on three days — Sept. 4, 5 and 6.

“We’ve been consistently locked down from Aug. 21 to Sept. 9,” he said. “We were locked down all weekend now we’re getting locked up again because they’re short-staffed. 

Windsor lawyer Robert DiPietro said inmates “pay the price” for understaffing.  

“A lot of them get locked down for 20, 24 hours a day because they don’t have enough staff to allow these guys their time out of their cells,” he said. “Which is cruel and unusual punishment for people who are supposed to be presumed innocent.” 

Provincial jails generally house people sentenced to two years less a day and those in pre-trial custody. 

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“The overwhelming majority of people in there haven’t been found guilty of anything,” said Windsor defence lawyer Bobby Russon. “No matter what we think of people who commit crimes, you want to treat everyone humanely. I think it’s important the jail be used not only as a deterrent but as a rehabilitative tool. As something to hopefully prevent future offences. Right now with the short staffing and lack of funding, that’s simply not happening.” 

Data obtained by The Canadian Press through freedom-of-information requests revealed this year that most Ontario jails are over capacity. Windsor’s jail was the third most overcrowded. 

“The conditions at the jail because of overcrowding means they have to stack three people in a cell for two, and they’ve got people sleeping on the floor,” said DiPietro. “It’s really terrible.” 

The South West Detention Centre was at 129 per cent capacity, with 337 inmates housed in a facility equipped for 262. Ontario’s Ministry of the Solicitor General did not provide the Star with details about current inmate levels at the centre. 

“Constant overcrowding,” another inmate, who didn’t want his name used, told the Star. “It’s crazy. There have been fights constantly over nothing, because there’s so many people. It’s getting really dangerous.” 

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When the $247-million jail opened in 2014, it was touted as a larger modern facility that would alleviate many problems of the century-old Windsor Jail, such as overcrowding.  

“Governments are not great, in my experience, at planning for the future,” said Russon. “They plan for right now. There are too many people at the current jail, we’ll build enough to house what we have there now instead of looking at things trending upwards. It seems to have been a Band-Aid solution rather than a progressive solution, which is sadly not surprising.” 

Brent Ross, a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Solicitor General, told the Star in an email that the province is investing $500 million on new hires and infrastructure improvements.  

Ross said the larger infrastructure projects include expansion of the Thunder Bay Correctional Centre and Kenora Jail, along with construction of a new facility in Thunder Bay. 

The province also plans to add up to 430 beds at intermittent centres in London and Toronto by 2026, and double capacity at the new Brockville Correctional Complex. He made no mention of Windsor. 

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“The government is committed to enhancing Ontario’s adult correctional services by providing the necessary capacity, tools, and resources to ensure the safety of our communities and the well-being of staff and individuals in custody,” Ross said in an email. 

DiPietro said the issue goes beyond the number of beds in a jail. 

“There are just so many problems with the whole system,” he said. 

DiPietro said prosecutors have been taking a harder line in some cases, such as firearm possession, seeking to detain suspects instead of giving them bail. 

“So they’re all remanded into custody,” he said. “But the law says they have a right to bail.” 

The problem is feeding on itself. Years ago, DiPietro said people would have a bail hearing on the day of their arrest. Now, because there are so many people in custody and the courts don’t run enough bail hearings, it can take more than a week.

“By the time they get a hearing, more people are being arrested, more people are being detained,” said DiPietro. “They’re not catching up to the problem.” 

Burned-out corrections officers aren’t the only ones feeling the impact. 

“Being locked down as much as we have been with three guys in a cell is very hard mentally, because you can barely walk around in a cell,” said Langlois, who has served multiple jail stints related to a drug addiction that started around age 15. 

Russon has seen it with many clients. 

“It has a negative effect on mental health, on physical health, on efforts to recover, on efforts to rehabilitate,” he said. “It creates a negative environment and it lessens everything we want out of our jails.”

twilhelm@postmedia.com

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