Since the Ontario provincial election in February, we’ve spent a lot of time on this podcast trying to shine a light on some of the under-reported issues that the provincial government is ignoring, or actively making worse. Law and order though? That’s supposed to be under the Ford government’s bailiwick as they sell us a story of rampant criminality set loose on Ontario, but what if the real crime is happening inside Ontario’s jails?

A CBC investigation published this week had some startling insight into who makes up the population of provincial jails. In the first six months of 2025, the jail population averaged 10,800 prisoners. And why are these people in jail? Well, the figures obtained in a Freedom of Information request shows that nearly 82 per cent of all prisoners detained last year were on remand, meaning that most of them are awaiting trial and are legally innocent.

So with our jails overflowing, why is the Ontario government demanding “Jail, Not Bail”? Well, they are pushing for more jail construction across the province, but many of those spaces are months and years away, some of them won’t be ready until well into the next decade. Also, that means there will be even less money for the things that would help keep people out of prison, like supportive housing, drug treatment programs, or job training assistance.

Justin Piché, who is a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa and a member of the advocacy group Coalition Against Proposed Prisons, or CAPP, joins us this week to tell us why building more prisons doesn’t necessarily build safer communities. We will talk about the incredible amounts of money that the Ontario government has proposed to spend on prisons, how that money can be better spent to spare people from doing things that lead to jail sentences, and why creating more jails isn’t a partisan issue.

So let’s pass go and head straight to jail and the issues there on this week’s Guelph Politicast!

You can learn more about The Coalition Against Proposed Prisons at their website, and you can also find them on Instagram and YouTube. It’s also worth check out the CBC investigation, “Ontario jails set to hit overcrowding record as bail reform looms, data shows,” and you can find the direct link to that article here.

Programming Note: A new episode of the Politicast will be posted this weekend, and then we will post the 500th episode of the show next week

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