CityNews exclusive finds inmates regularly released by mistake
Posted Jul 15, 2016 05:10:19 AM.
Last Updated Jul 15, 2016 06:45:36 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Ontario’s jails are supposed to keep criminals, and those charged with serious crimes, behind bars. But a CityNews investigation reveals that’s not always happening.
Documents obtained through a freedom of information request reveal 114 adult offenders were accidentally released from Ontario correctional and detention centres between 2010 and 2015. That’s about 20 inmates released every year without court-imposed conditions, probation and parole oversight, or completed sentences.
“Part of this is clerical errors,” says Monte Vieselmeyer a correctional officer and Chair of the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union Corrections caucus.
“In the province of Ontario on any given day we have hundreds of discharges so there is a clerical function. Again, one discharge improperly is one too many.”
CityNews acquired copies of provincial protocol for releasing inmates. Correctional officers are required to check the inmate against his/her mugshot, to ask several identifying questions and to even cross-reference their signature on admission to their signature for release. But before an inmate can be released from an institution, managers must give the okay.
“The responsibility would solely be a part of the management function. Correctional officers don’t have that authority to release offender so it would take two signatures of two different managers to release an individual from our correctional facilities,” explains Vieselmeyer.
“The vast majority of improper releases are due to administrative or technical error by any one of the justice sector partners. For example, an inmate with multiple court orders with numerous court appearance dates,” Brent Ross, a Ministry of Correctional Services spokesperson, said in a statement.
But that’s not always the case. As CityNews first reported last July, Jason Kunz was able to successfully escape from London’s Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre, by disguising himself as another inmate scheduled for release. He had been incarcerated since his November 2014 arrest on drug and gun charges. It took several days for London police to apprehend him.
“The ministry takes its responsibilities in this area very seriously. An improper release of an inmate from a correctional facility is always unacceptable,” says Ross.
On average, about 20 inmates are released in error every year, although some jails are better than others at keeping offenders behind bars. Toronto East Detention Centre, for example, has only released three inmates erroneously since 2010. Elgin Middlesex, however, has released a dozen inmates before their sentences were complete and Milton’s Maplehurst has made the error nine times between 2010 and 2015. Toronto South Detention Centre, the $600-million mega-jail in Mimico that opened only two-and-a-half years ago, has already made the mistake seven times.
“I don’t think the public should be concerned at all,” says Maija Martin a criminal defence attorney.
“We know most of the people at provincial jails in Ontario are there awaiting trial. They are people who are presumed innocent. And for the most part those people are there for non-violent offences. This is a human system, it has some serious errors. This sounds like it’s a mathematical problem. I would be more concerned about the conditions of the jail and the problems with the bail system that have led to so many people who are presumed innocent being in custody.”
The data, obtained through a freedom of information request, does not indicate how many of these errant releases involved sentenced inmates, or those awaiting trial.
