Jails in northern Ontario are facing some of the worst overcrowding pressures in the province, with population data showing dramatic increases since 2019.
Frontline workers and inmates are warning the conditions inside many facilities are increasingly unsafe.
Through freedom of information requests, CBC News obtained data from the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General representing jail population and operational capacity for Jan. 1, 2019, to July 1, 2025.
Based on the ministry’s most recent data, covering January to June 2025, here’s the average occupancy rate for jails in northern Ontario:
CBC has reached out to the Ministry of the Solicitor General for comment but did not receive a response before deadline.
On the average night in 2019, the Algoma Treatment and Remand Centre in Sault Ste. Marie had a handful of empty beds.
The ministry’s latest data, covering January 2024 to June 2025, shows that the small, mixed-gender facility has consistently required about 40 people to sleep on the floor.
Josh Miller, a correctional officer and the union president for workers there, says the overcrowding is evident and impacts every aspect of daily operations.
“We have 155 beds, that’s actual places for inmates to sleep. As of today, our count this morning was 210. So that means we’re about 135 per cent over capacity and it’s been that way for at least a year,” Miller said.
Inmates are being housed in spaces that are not designed to be living units like multi-purpose rooms and video call suites he explained, adding that means a mattress on the floor without access to washroom facilities.
“We’re responsible on the frontline for delivering basic services. Everything from health care, to feeding, to visits, to professional visits, to fresh air, to hopefully some form of programming,” Miller said.
“When you’re operating at 135 per cent capacity, the time in your day just becomes exceptionally limited. All of the things that you would like to do tend to get usurped by the things you have to do.”
He said the Sault Ste. Marie jail was designed to serve 270 meals a day, but staff now prepare 600, without additional support.
Miller, who has been working as a jail guard in northern Ontario for over 27 years, said there are also signs of rising violence inside, which he feels is directly tied to overcrowding.
“Jails are tense places,” he said. “When you pack people into a space made for half the number of people actually living there, tensions go up. As tensions go up, violence increases.”
At the Sudbury Jail, the average population was 142 inmates in 2019.
But the latest data from the Ontario government shows that the jail is now holding an average of 184 inmates a night — an increase that’s lead to dozens of inmates routinely sleep on the floor.
One of them was Sudbury’s Scott Henderson, who spent two nights in custody there in October. It was his first experience in a jail.
“It was just really loud and uncomfortable. It was like you were in a concrete jungle,” Henderson said in an interview with CBC.
“We had to sleep on the floor with these pads and it was head to foot. There was not enough room to where you could actually have some space separation and we had to sleep right at the toilet.”
He recalled other inmates in nearby cells clearly displaying signs of mental distress that went unaddressed.
“It was one officer assigned to all of this stuff… so nobody was being attended to,” Henderson said.
In late October, he was charged with criminal harassment and he was granted bail. His case is making its way through the court system.
“We’re all in there for allegedly doing something wrong. But at the end of the day, we’re still human beings,” Henderson said.
North Bay’s jail is seeing similar pressures.
In 2019, it held an average of 81 inmates per night.
The latest data, covering January 2024 to June 2025, shows that number has climbed to 131 — an increase of more than 60 per cent.
Correctional officer Roselle Greuter, who has worked in several Ontario institutions since 1999, said the population inside North Bay Jail has noticeably changed.
“We’re getting a lot of mentally handicapped inmates, we’re getting inmates that are drug-addicted, so they’re coming in with psychosis,” she told CBC. “It wreaks havoc.”
Greuter said she is not trained in mental health or addictions treatment, yet those issues now shape daily operations.
“Sometimes you’re putting a mentally ill person in with [another inmate],” she said. “They go into psychosis, they start fights, we have to break them up.”
She said lockdowns, which provincial data shows are increasing in all Ontario jails, often stem from the cumulative strain of overcrowding, violent incidents and staffing issues.
“The number of arrests are out of our control and we can’t do anything about it. The only thing that we can do as a correctional facility is try and manage what we are given,” Greuter said.
“We just don’t have the resources or the capacity to deal with a lot of these issues.”
At the Monteith Correctional Complex near Iroquois Falls, the average population has risen from 135 inmates in 2019 to 214 — a 58 per cent increase.
Correctional officer Ken Steinbrunner, who represents staff at Monteith as union president, said the jail has increasingly been required to take inmates from more crowded jails such as Sudbury and Thunder Bay.
“Now they seem to be spreading the pain,” he said.
“No matter what, if there’s a vacancy, you’re getting people. You’re putting people on the floor. If Monteith was just dealing with its catchment area, we wouldn’t be overpopulated, but we’re not. We’ve got Thunder Bay’s, we’ve got Sudbury’s and sometimes North Bay.”
Steinbrunner said the amount of funding the jail receives for staffing, food and programs is based on its certified capacity and do not increase when inmate counts rise.
“Anytime we exceed our [certified capacity], we exceed our budget for food. We exceed our available time for recreation. We exceed our available time for support staff,” he said. “We’re constantly over, so we’re constantly under on services.”
Steinbrunner said the strain is felt across Ontario.
“There’s not an empty bed,” he said. “Across the province, they’ve never had more people in custody.”
He said jail guards routinely work overtime and staffing levels remain far below what is needed.
“It’s nonstop overtime,” he said. “Everything is under-resourced. The infrastructure deficit is apparent.”
While the province has made some upgrades to Monteith, Steinbrunner said major gaps remain.
“There’s infrastructure deficits everywhere and they’re in the millions of dollars,” he said. “They’re building a new jail in Thunder Bay. They’re building one in Ottawa. But we need one in Sudbury. We need another one in the north.”
He said chronic overcrowding has shaped working conditions and the well-being of staff.
“It’s very frustrating,” he said. “Everybody knows it. Everybody experiences it. And everybody knows what happens at the end of the day with all this pressure.”
He said the pressure is felt by both inmates and corrections officers.
“It’s hard to hear that your friends are being injured,” he said. “It’s hard to hear that human beings aren’t being treated the way the law says they should be.”
The Kenora Jail held an average of 184 inmates on a typical night in 2019. In the most recent reporting period, the facility is now housing an average of 243 people, an increase of 31 per cent.
At the Thunder Bay Correctional Centre, the average nightly population has climbed from 93 inmates in 2019 to 188, an increase of more than 100 per cent.
Sean Bradshaw, a correctional officer and the union president for staff at the centre, said the jump is partly because they got roughly 50 more beds that are now usually full.
He explained the facility now also routinely helps relieve population pressure at both the Thunder Bay District Jail and the Kenora Jail.
“We are constantly trying to fill our beds,” he said. “We are pushing the limits of what the building will hold.”
He added that while inmates at the Thunder Bay correctional centre are often housed in a large open dormitory, which means no inmates sleeping on the floor, but does cause other problems.
“If you put [over a hundred] males together at any point in time, they’re going to establish a hierarchy,” Bradshaw said. “We have to be very cautious based on the dynamics.”
The other jail in the city, the Thunder Bay District Jail, remains over capacity despite a slight drop in population, from an average of 175 inmates in 2019 to 156 in 2025.
Correctional officer and union president Anthony Rojik said the jail has routinely operated between 115 and 123 per cent capacity in the past year, and has reached as high as 148 per cent at times.
“When we’re over 100 per cent, that means not every inmate has a physical bed,” Rojik said.
“Sometimes they’re on a mattress on the floor, underneath a bunk bed, in a cell no bigger than your average bathroom.”
He said assaults on staff have risen along with the overcrowding and staff burnout is widespread.
“I really think that the public needs to understand that we do our best every day. We show up and we do our best to protect the public safety and keep our community safe. Overcrowding is not something that’s going to go away, unfortunately,” Rojik said.
Construction is underway on a new correctional complex in the city, but Rojik said the province has not confirmed whether the existing jail will remain open once the new facility is complete.
“We’re years behind more infrastructure as the crime rate rises in Ontario and unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon,” he said.
