Back to SearchOn May 11, 2021, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) issued a statement calling for justice sector organizations – including police – to implement measures aimed at limiting the number of individuals in correctional facilities or in custody. A number of the recommendations were identified specifically to police organizations.
The OACP shares the concerns of the OHRC with regards to high prison populations, particularly during the current pandemic. The overcrowding of correctional facilities poses a serious health threat to those who reside in such facilities and correctional workers. It also poses a health threat to the community at large.
It should, however, be noted that the OACP Executive meets regularly with government and justice sector partners to collaborate on justice modernization issues, including supporting diversion programs that keep individuals out of correctional facilities when warranted. Police officers always exercise their discretion when it comes to charging an individual. Officers are already being provided with training and guidance related to their powers of discretion when it comes to charges or issuing warnings and cautions. Additionally, officers will further exercise their discretion when deciding whether or not it is appropriate to release a person once they are charged with an offence. In regard to remanding an individual into custody, police leaders are working with the Ministry of the Attorney General to do our part in ensuring only those who must remain in custody do so.
While police professionals in Ontario support doing all we can to help keep prison populations down, we believe that diversion and other programs that aim to achieve this goal must never lose sight of the fact that victims of crime, and their loved ones, deserve and demand that their safety is considered before offenders are released from custody. Justice must be appropriate when someone is alleged to have committed a crime.
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