Summary
“On any given day in Ontario’s provincial prisons, there are more legally innocent people in prison than there are sentenced prisoners. Yet, little is known about the experiences of these prisoners and the challenges they pose for correctional institutions. I seek to fill this gap by drawing on in-depth interviews with 120 pre-trial detainees (60 men and 60 women) and 40 staff at four maximum-security facilities in Ontario. My analysis focuses on the three temporal dimensions distinctive to what is known as pre-trial custody or ‘remand imprisonment’ that have been neglected by prior research: experiences of arrest and police custody, making bail and court appearances, and daily life on remand. My findings indicate that this process inflicts a series of state-sanctioned harms on legally innocent prisoners. Much of the harm of this experience can be traced back to the fact that the criminal justice system is ignorant of or unconcerned with the human costs of this process. Police, acting under their authority to arrest, can apprehend and hold an individual, and have no legal obligation to allow a personal phone call so that arrangements about their lives can be made. Court appearances typically require some advance preparation; yet remand prisoners in Ontario must grapple with an outdated phone system that permits collect-calls to landlines but not cellular devices, leaving many unable to contact lawyers or loved ones, and seriously limiting their ability to prepare for court. Daily life in these facilities is characterized by uncertainty for both prisoners and staff, who must grapple with whatever challenges come their way in the form of an unpredictable flow of new admissions. In this thesis, I argue that disruption and uncertainty are unique features of pre-trial imprisonment and I examine the costs of these on the individuals confined to and working inside these facilities.”—Pages ii-iii.