The Current - Catch 22: A CBC documentary

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

A CBC investigation recently found there are thousands more people behind bars in Ontario jails than just a few years ago. But the number of jail beds has remained the same. This is all happening while federal and provincial politicians are discussing new bail reform legislation -- changes that could lead to a further influx of accused people being incarcerated. The CBC's   Julie Ireton brings us her documentary "Catch 22."

If you want to hear daily news that doesn't hurt your soul and might even be good for your soul, check out As It Happens. I'm Chris Howden. And I'm Neil Kokesal. Every day we reach people at the center of the most extraordinary stories, like the doctor who restored a patient's eyesight with a tooth. Or a musician in an orchestra that plays instruments made out of vegetables. Take the scenic route through the day's news with As It Happens, and you can find us wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast.

Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. A CBC investigation recently found there are thousands more people behind bars in Ontario jails than just a few years ago. But the number of jail beds has remained the same. So almost every institution in that province is chronically overcrowded. There has also been a 38% increase in the number of women in Ontario jails. Most of them are there on remand, which means they're being held pre-trial. With more people, there are more reports of violence, more law.

lockdowns, more complaints about inadequate health care inside those jails. This is all happening, while federal and provincial politicians are discussing new bail reformed legislation, changes that could lead to a further influx of accused people being incarcerated. Julie Arriton is a CBC senior investigative reporter. Just a warning, this story deals with issues including suicide, miscarriage, and trauma. Here's Julie's documentary, Bit of a Catch-22. Are you nervous at all about where we're headed? I'm not nervous too much because I know that I won't be having to go in.

Thinking about all of it is it's bringing up some not so great emotions, but I'm lucky I've had access to programs and therapy and all those things that I didn't have access to before I went to jail. Yeah. It's kind of like, I don't know, a bit of a catch-22, I guess. Sue is all bundled up, wearing a parka and a tuk. Okay, here we are. I guess we'll park and visit her parking. Yeah. We've pulled into the Ottawa Carleton Detention Center.

People around here call it OCDC. It's a large red brick institution surrounded by a high fence with barbed wire on top. I'm happy I'm on the outside of the fence. and I'm happy that I'm in a different place in my life where I don't need to be looking over my shoulder and in fear that I'll end up back in there. I'm calling her Sue, but that's not her real name. CBC is protecting her identity for her safety.

So up here directly in front of us, this would be the female dorms. She spent almost four months inside this jail. She was there in the winter months during COVID. The conditions of the jail, it's all cold steel and brick and mortar. Everything is cold. Everything is harsh. It's important to hear the story of how Sue ended up in this jail.

So we're going to get started. I do want to ask you about your former life. How was it that you ended up being charged? I think that it might be a good idea to have Kleenex handy. Yeah, yeah. It's not easy to unravel all your dark sense. secrets to a relative stranger and into a microphone. Throughout my life I've had, you know, a lot of different traumatic things that have

happened and I developed a dependency on alcohol and it just kind of over the years changed me. I know that my moral compass was all off. It ended up to the point where I ended up, you know, using narcotics where I was in a point where I was in a point where I was, where I started selling them. The people she hung out with were involved with criminal activity. They became like my family and it just rolled into, I ended up getting, you know, caught. Sue ended up in jail facing a series of drug charges. She got out on bail, then she violated her bail conditions, a curfew breach, and she was back in jail.

And within a six-month period of time, I went from having no record at a time. all to being in OCDC three times. The first two times I got out pretty quickly and the third time I was in longer. Sue was caught in that revolving door we sometimes hear politicians talk about, but not because she committed violent crimes. I was in my disease really badly at that time. She's referring to her addiction to drugs and alcohol. That third time was her extended stay at OCDC.

I mean, you go in there and it's just you got to get processed through, which is traumatic in itself because they, you know, you've got to be strip-searched and it's very intrusive. Tell me about what the conditions were like when you went into that jail. The cells are absolutely disgusting. There's feces, sometimes splattered on the walls. They had people, women, who would be locked up in the cells and just, like, scream for days on end

because, and they clearly needed to be in a safe mental health facility, like, really needed that. And, like, I put, actually used tampons as earplugs because I was going crazy with the constant day and night, day after day after day. The screaming. The screaming, yeah. It's close quarters, and she got to know other women. I mean, I don't think I've met a woman that was incarcerated that didn't have trauma.

In the three times I was there, each time I was there, I saw four or five of the same indigenous women that would get out and get back. in. Get out and get back in. Myself, I thought, I'm going to get out and I'm not going to go back in. But once that starts, it's really, really, really difficult to get out of that cycle. Can you think of the worst thing that you experienced in jail? The worst thing for me was when I was on suicide watch, it was actually horrific. I knew that I was going through withdrawal, so that was exasperating things. It was Christmas Eve when it started. She was missing her family, her two children, her siblings.

I ended up just crying and crying for hours and hours and asking, can you put me separate. It's a request she would regret. They put you into a segregation cell, which is what would. normally be used for inmates who are problematic, violent. In segregation, the prisoner can't have personal items for their own protection. No regular clothing, no underwear, just a small nighty. And it's like a baby doll dress. It feels like an oven mitt material.

It must be made of hemp or something. I don't know. So I guess I didn't understand fully that it was possible for a human being. being to be put into a cold cell with no blanket, no mat, and the lights are always bright, bright, bright. They don't turn off the lights. And you're not allowed to read. And the cell that I was in, the sewage was backed up. She wasn't just sorry for herself and other women. It actually made her feel bad for the people guarding her. I don't know what the correctional officers could be thinking in those moments because they're also human beings and how traumatic it must be

to work in a place like that and see the type of terror and horrific trauma that a person is going through and not be able to do anything about it, nothing. It's a tough environment for the guards, too. We're in crisis. Chad Oldfield has been a correctional officer in Ontario for 20 years. He's a rep with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. It really does. highlight what we have been, you know, ringing the alarm bells on. Like, I mean, it's, it's highlighting a system that's at a breaking point. He says rates of violence are higher than ever. And there are more lockdowns.

That's when inmates are locked in their cells for several hours. They can't leave to shower or to make a phone call or even go outside. You know, you put 3,000 inmates into the system and you don't have additional staff to take care of the inmates and the service delivery. I mean, like, there's going to be impacts. The Ontario government provided CBC with data about jail populations, capacities, and demographics. It came through a freedom of information request. The data covers six years from just before the pandemic in 2019 to last summer.

There's been a 38% increase in the number of women incarcerated. That includes Sue. And the majority of those women in jail, 85% are waiting for their trial. They're legally innocent. The population of men is growing, too, and as of last summer, almost all the jails in Ontario were overcapacity. A few were operating at more than 150%. Meanwhile, both federal and provincial governments are pushing for bail reforms to get tough on crime. It's out of control now.

You see these criminals getting out on bail not once or twice, four or five times and going out and committing hands. It's not a wild west. It's a war zone in some of these communities. People in these neighborhoods are terrified. These changes will keep violent, repeat offenders of these crimes off our streets and out of our communities. But there is a cause and effect to the jail overcrowding in Ontario. So it's you and little. I've been practicing criminal defense law for 20 years and I'm the president of the Defense Council Association of Ottawa. He represents both men and women, many of them in the Ottawa jail, pre-trial. But the rise in the number of women concerns him. They're often involved in nuisance-related defenses, breaching of conditions,

and this is often related to mental health and drug addiction. These are not usually violent offenders. But he says all prisoners are experiencing overcrowding. Sometimes three or four people share a small cell meant for two. He asks his client, to keep journals. It's making sure that our clients are documenting the things that are happening to them in the jail system. And I can tell you that judges are very receptive to the information. That's because judges in Ontario have stayed cases citing human rights violations inside the jails. That means accused people have walked free.

Judges are also giving credits, handing out lighter sentences because of poor jail conditions. If you're in that camp, where you're sort of tough on crime and jail, not bail. If you are in that camp, you're probably also somebody who wants to see offenders getting longer sentences. And I can tell you that as long as the conditions of the jails persist and remain this way and the governments are not responding to the court's criticisms, then the court has to step in because it's the only recourse.

And how does the court remedy this is they do it by reducing sentences and giving credit for the inmates who have been subject to these conditions. So this might, at the front end, keep more people in jail. But ultimately, they're not going to stay in jail as long as perhaps you may hope. Hey there, I'm David Kahn. If you're like me, there are things you love about living in the GTA and things that drive you absolutely crazy. Every day on This Is Toronto, we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA,

the news you've got to know, and the conversations your friends, will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighborhood or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out, this is Toronto, wherever you get your podcasts. held a media conference. Good morning. They were announcing a new provincial bail reform bill. It would allow them to use digital tools to track repeat offenders, and it would expand bail prosecution teams.

The Toronto Police Service, along with police leaders across the country, have long advocated for reforms that put public safety first, including strengthening our bail system. The fact that failed to comply with conditions is the third most common charge associated with firearms offenses reflects how frequently individuals breach the conditions of their release. Thank you, Chief. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Next came Doug Downey, Ontario's Attorney General. We're here to deliver on our promise to fix the bail system and keep violent repeat offenders off the streets.

We need a stronger bail system that puts the safety of innocent people first and prevents dangerous offenders from cycling in and out of custody. It's the Solicitor General Michael Kersner, who is in charge of the province's jails. He declined my request for an interview. But at the November news conference, he made it clear that building and expanding jails is a priority. We're investing, we're building, and we're opening up new career. beds like never before. We will be very, very aggressive in opening up new jails because in the end of the day, that means that if a person gets arrested, I have a place for them.

All the evidence shows that the direction in which the government, the federal government is going, the provincial government is going on these issues, is completely wrongheaded, goes against all the research. Kim Pate is an independent senator from Ontario. In that role, Pate has the right to visit jails and prisons whenever she wants, and she's done it more times than she can count. Instead of throwing more money and people into prisons, more resources into imprisoning people, we should be investing in housing, in addiction supports, in trauma supports, all of the things that we know will assist people not to be victimized but also not to end up

criminalized and imprisoned. Pate used to run the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Frye Societies. Our jails are full of the people who are failed by every other system. Most have mental health issues. Most have histories of past abuse. Many are residential schools, survivors. But Pate thinks there is a motivation behind the newly proposed bail laws. It is absolutely politics. There is no other explanation for it when all the evidence points the other way.

This bail reform bill is going to make things worse. Plain and simple. The pretext is just that. It's performative. It's pretending that we're going to, that we're all taking this issue seriously and that we're going to do something, it may take people off the street, so it may make the issues less visible for a period of time. But unless those people die in prison,

and many more likely will die in prison, then they're coming back into the community with the very same issues they went into prison with, and in fact many more likely, and a criminal record. Ooh, a lot of my stuff from when I was incarcerated. Ashley Stevens picks up a brown paper bag with her name written in black Sharpie across the top. They give you a bag like this to keep your belongings in. She has long, dark hair with a tint of red.

I don't know how I should take this all out. Ashley has a nose ring and a black bear tattooed on her chest. This is one of my books from the canteen. She spent four months in two different. Ontario jails earlier this year. Unlike Sue, Ashley wasn't in for drug-related charges. Like me, myself, I've never done any of that stuff. I've only ever smoked marijuana.

For Ashley, the crimes are domestic-related, uttering threats, mischief, and assault. He and I were not supposed to be around each other. And like Sue and so many others in custody, she breached bail conditions. Unfortunately, I had postpartum depression and just things were not working out well with her father and I as much as we wanted it to, and unfortunately things got physical between him and I.

Yeah, unfortunately, because I was the one with the conditions, I was the one who'd get in trouble. So sure enough, we got caught and I got arrested. She ended up in OCDC last January. I guess they do mandatory pregnancy tests for all women. And that's how she found out she was pregnant. It would be baby number four. I knew something wasn't right about this pregnancy.

I just felt something was off. It was while working in the jail's laundry room, about a month into her incarceration, that she saw blood. I kind of froze and just stared, and I was like, oh no, please, no, no, no, please no. She said it took a while, but eventually she got to see medical staff.

And they're like, oh, it's just bleeding. Don't worry. We don't think you're losing the baby or anything like that. I'm like, the amount of blood and everything, that amount of blood is not normal. Ashley says she was eventually taken to hospital. A miscarriage was confirmed, and she was sent back to the jail for nature to take its course. But things got worse. Like, I felt like I was dying.

Yeah, so I ended up passing out. C.O.'s called paramedics. This time, the hospital doctors performed surgery to remove the failed pregnancy from her uterus. And I'm handcuffed, shackled, everything. Like, I couldn't even walk, though, too. So where was I going to go? But there was another problem. Ashley had a cut on her buttocks that was very infected.

She says it required another surgery. That's how bad it got to the point where I got sepsis. And the doctor even said if I didn't come in when I did, I would have been dead. I was fully ignored. What were the nurses and doctors saying? Nothing really. Like, to see the doctor, you're only allowed to. to see him once a month. And you get to see him for a few seconds.

After almost a week in hospital, Ashley was sent back to jail to recover. She was concerned about the healing wound. I was supposed to be being cleaned twice a day. At OCDC, they were changing it once every few days. I took forever to heal. I'd still not fully healed. Like, there's still a bruise mark their scar, and I had to be careful too sometimes with the way I sit. In April, Ashley pleaded guilty to some of the charges against her. Her lawyer says during sentencing, the judge acknowledged Ashley's hardships in jail. She served another 19 days and was released.

She's now on probation. Yeah, so these are just, you know, little notes. Sue, the former prisoner we heard from earlier. She had her own health concerns in the same. inside OCDC. Letters and just paperwork and notes on the psychiatry stuff. She has all the files from her time inside. She says she needed help.

She didn't want to go on living. By the time I saw the doctor, I was like super crashing out because you have to make a request to see the doctor. So there was a couple of times where I actually had to be pulled out because I had to scream. I need to see a doctor. I need to see a doctor. I need to see a doctor screaming at the top of my lungs down the hallway so that everybody, and the girls did not like that. They're like, it's too much. And which was too much, but I didn't feel like I had a choice. Sue pulls something else out of her pack, a big black book she brought home from jail. This journal, I call it a journal more of a scrap because there's all kinds of bits and pieces of

all kinds of. All the notes, pictures, drawings, and letters are glued in. with toothpaste. It brings up a lot of emotion for me, actually. I've had it tucked away in my storage. Sue pleaded guilty to drug charges and spent eight months on house arrest, then probation. But she says her time inside marked a turning point in her life. I don't have to feel that emptiness anymore. And I do, when I go to bed at night, I can feel that I do have a life worth living. She now has an apartment. I had to go to jail. to get help with housing. I had to go to jail to get bumped up on the list for mental health.

She gets counseling and volunteers with a 12-step program. Her family is closer. She even started a college program to become a social services worker. I committed crimes, and those crimes put me into jail, okay? When I'm in jail, I don't need to be ripped apart and re-traumatized. way more than I was before I went in, that's not going to help me. That's going to make me have more problems. So, like Sue says, it really was a bit of a catch-22.

I don't think that I would be alive if I hadn't been locked up. The documentary is produced by CBC Senior Investigative Reporter Julie Ireton with help from Liz Hough at the audio documentary unit. The CBC asked Ontario's Ministry of the Solicitor, general about the health care that Ashley Stevens experienced. The ministry said it can't provide details about an individual health information, but it has policies and procedures in place to ensure the delivery of health care in correctional facilities. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC

podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.