In May 2017, the Ontario government suddenly, and without consultation, announced plans to replace Ottawa’s crowded, much-criticized, and scandal-ridden Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre with a new jail that would hold 140 more prisoners — a 24 per cent increase — and cost an estimated half a billion dollars or more. About two thirds of prisoners currently in OCDC are on remand awaiting court dates in our increasingly clogged legal system, often as a result of bail breaches for relatively minor violations. This event seeks to initiate a public dialogue about whether the new jail is the most humane, productive, and cost-effective way to deal with social problems that affect Ottawa and much of the jail population such as poverty, homelessness, mental health, and drug and alcohol issues.

Join us on November 7th to listen to Dr. Aaron Doyle of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, along with Dr Erin Dej from the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, Dr Marilou Gagnon from the School of Nursing at the University of Ottawa and Overdose Prevention Ottawa, and Hawa Mohamed from the Canadian Somali Mothers Association and Dan Parlow, an Ojibway man and Carleton Criminology undergraduate who is a former prisoner.

For more information: https://carleton.ca/fass/2017/cu-city-bigger-jail-ottawa-community-alternatives/