I don’t think it a controversial point to consider that a society’s moral health is evidenced by its collective treatment of those individuals existing at its margins: that is, its poor, its sick, and its unhoused (to name but a few). It is for this reason, I suspect, that promises to uplift these individuals often constitute the stuff that political platforms are made of. After all, what reasonable person could (openly) deny that addressing homelessness, increasing funding for hospitals and medical research, or ending poverty are objectively good socio-political projects? Certainly not an electorally-minded individual, eager to persuade voters that their efforts stem exclusively from some altruistic Weberian call to public service.

Yet, there is another demographic on the margins: inmates. These individuals, however, engender far fewer feelings of kindness and empathy from the majority. In fact, if they are considered at all, it is likely to spur feelings of disdain and contempt for what is deemed to be their deliberate transgression of the social contract designed to maintain societal order. It is, thus, no accident that various iterations of ‘tough-on-crime’ messaging have found their way into Canadian political rhetoric. Indeed, when discussing the serious issue of overcrowding in provincial facilities, Ontario Premier Doug Ford explicitly told reporters that he was “not worried about the criminals” and that he was willing to “build as many jails as we need to put these criminals behind bars for a long time.”

In addition to Ford’s dehumanizing use of the word “criminals” (considering that some individuals occupying these facilities are awaiting trial and are, therefore, presumed innocent), his statements also betray the presence of the sort of profound political apathy that has allowed for the cruel and inhumane conditions experienced by many individuals detained in provincial facilities to occur. Recently, as part of a larger sentencing package, an individual represented by the criminal defence lawyer I am working with this summer, submitted an affidavit detailing the conditions inside the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre. With the facility’s 8x6 feet cells constructed for only two occupants, the individual described the phenomenon of being ‘triple bunked,’ whereby a third inmate was required to sleep on a thin mattress on the floor. The individual also explained the unsanitary conditions of the facility, whereby cockroaches, rats, mice, and spiders were frequent and unwelcome cellmates. Clothing and linens, too, were infrequently laundered. When they were apparently laundered, inmates received clothing stained with blood and human waste. During lockdowns, garbage and waste products were not removed from the range (the large common area) resulting in a severe and nauseating stench, exacerbated during the summer months due to heat and a lack of proper ventilation. It was, as they noted, an ‘unbearable’ experience that left them feeling ‘hopeless’ and unable to ‘retain any sort of dignity.’

It is also worth noting that even a cursory search through recent sentencing decisions publicly available on CanLIIreveals that the above conditions are not isolated to Hamilton-Wentworth. In their 2024 decision in R v Vincent, for example, Justice O’Marra discussed the contents of Mr. Vincent’s affidavit which described the “difficult and abhorrent living conditions at Maplehurst” (para 29). Justice O’Marra described Mr. Vincent as having been subjected to similar experiences regarding hygiene, sanitation, and overcrowding (paras 105-110).

Following the 2016 directives of the Ontario Court of Appeal in R v Duncan, it is now well established practice that sentencing judges consider the harshness of pre-sentence conditions, allowing them to grant additional credit beyond 1.5 days. Yet, in doing so, the judiciary is attempting to mitigate what Justice Schreck, in R v Persad, referred to as “essentially a form of deliberate state misconduct” (para 34). In his (scathing) decision, Justice Schreck criticized the provincial government, noting that the Ministry of the Solicitor General has made “a deliberate policy choice to treat offenders in an inhumane fashion […] rather than devote appropriate resources to the operation of the institution” (para 33). “[T]he Ministry”, he continued, “has clearly chosen to save money rather than heed judicial concerns about the lack of humane treatment of inmates” (para 33).

As mentioned above, the governmental solution to this Conrad-esque horror story, according to Premier Ford, is the construction of more facilities. Indeed, the construction of a new 345-bed facility in Thunder Bay is already underway – with the steep price tag of $1.2 billion dollars. Each and every tax dollar spent by the provincial government on facilities such as this, again, represents a deliberate policy choice. Our government chooses to spend money in this way, rather than on desperately needed mental health resources, supports for Indigenous communities, or on forms of affordable housing. And so, I ask: in our representative democratic system, where our officials (at least in theory) require the on-going confidence of the majority to remain in power, how can our collective complicity in such ‘inhumane’ treatment of thousands of people not speak to the moral (un)health of our society?