Why was kingston penitentiary built

As such, it was considered an "institution". This is a subject for debate, but the distinction between "penitentiary" and "Gaol" pronounced "Jail" is important. Generally, the early "Gaols" that predated the opening of the Provincial Penitentiary of Upper Canada in were small facilities operated by administrative 'Districts' that focused solely upon the punishment of crime. In more recent history, provincial jails have also incorporated rehabilitation programs.

Penitentiaries house adult offenders serving two years or more. Another obvious distinction is that in Canada, "provincial jails" are administered by their respective provinces, while "penitentiaries" are administered by the federal government. The land upon which Kingston Penitentiary stands was purchased by the government as the site of the first "penitentiary" on May 30th, The site was considered to be "separate and away" from the town of Kingston, because it was some 2-miles approx.

Even though the first cell-block was standing by , the official opening of Canada's first penitentiary did not occur until the arrival of the first inmates on June 1, They had been held there for a month while awaiting the opening of the institution. It should be noted that there were "Gaols" pronounced "jails" in existence in Canada prior to , but the "Provincial Penitentiary of Upper Canada" at Kingston was the first "penitentiary" in British North America designed to rehabilitate as well as punish offenders of the law.

The first person to have actually been sentenced by the courts in Canada to serve a 'penitentiary term' was Joseph Bouchette also shown as Bonichette; Bonsette; Boushette. This simply meant that he was the first man in the first group of inmates to be entered into the register when they arrived at the penitentiary on June 1, Inmate Bouchette was entered as 6. As it happened, three women were sentenced to serve penitentiary terms on the same day, August 28, All were from the Gore District the Hamilton, Ontario area.

All were sentenced for the crime of "Grand Larceny". Susan Turner and Hannah Downes were sentenced to serve 1 year, and Hannah Baglen was sentenced to 2 years. Despite her longer sentence, Hannah Baglen was actually the first of the three to be released, approximately 4 months in advance of the others. The youngest female inmate appears to have been - Sarah Jane Pierce, a 9 year old from Brockville, Ontario.

She was sentenced on March 4, for house breaking and larceny and given a 7 year sentence. Among the items that she was found guilty of stealing were a quilt, a ladies hat, a towel, a pitcher, some beef, raisins, biscuits, tea and sugar. The official closing date is Sept. Tours are not recommended for children. The Commission produced a report in After his capture and conviction, Bernardo was sentenced to life imprisonment and was later declared a dangerous offender unlikely to be released.

Incarceration in Canada. According to Statistics Canada , in — there were a total of 40, adult offenders incarcerated in Canadian federal and provincial prisons on an average day for an incarceration rate of per , population. In Canada , we have two "level" of prisons. While you're in pretrial, you are in a provincial prison.

If you get a sentence lower than two years you stay in a provincial prison. If you get more than two years, you go to a federal prison. Luka is currently serving a life sentence at the Archambault Institution in Quebec, Canada. The ministry maintains 25 correctional facilities that include: correctional centres.

Who Killed Ty Conn. On the morning of a scheduled interview with two CSC employees, the DoJ intercepted, postponing it until my questions had been screened. Initially, I was surprised. However, the CSC, already cautious and unforthcoming, became perceptively more so following the suicide of Ashley Smith while in detention and especially when a inquest ruled her death a homicide.

My interviews and inquiries took place in the months following this ruling, when the CSC was under greater scrutiny for its treatment of prisoners, especially the mentally ill.

The syndicated prison radio show really hit me. The emotional account given by Margaret Beare of the breakdown in humaneness that happens inside total institutions. Kim Pate, who is now a Senator, talking about what the replacement of old-fashioned metal keys with electronic buttons to open cell doors means for the mental health of prisoners. How extremely poorly correctional officers are educated in mental health intervention , not to mention how much the officers themselves struggle in this regard , with PTSD at post-Vietnam War levels.

The implication being that a more progressive approach to justice would be curtailed by the expensive assemblage of bricks that themselves were the result of the imperfect plans and fads of the day.

Who did you work with on Through a Penal System, Darkly? The photography was made possible thanks to a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. The focus of the residency was to research and create a legal and historical context for the photographs I had taken—which was accomplished through collaboration with seven upper-year law students who elected to take my Directed Reading course.

Through research, discussions and interviews with the various stakeholders, the students and I explored the ideals of the criminal justice system—past, present and future. Ultimately, the photographs and accompanying stories, essays, historical anecdotes tell us something about Kingston Penitentiary. The breadth and scope of the interviews and essays are owed mostly to them.

I can relate to it. Those curtains! He had such great access! My access was minimum and given grudgingly by the Head of the Correctional Service Canada. I like thinking that my project aligns with the work of Tings Chak, which strives to be more experiential than the more straight-forward documentarian photographs of, say, Geoffrey James.

Her graphic novel, Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention , explores the role and ethics of architectural design and representation in mass incarceration, and is pretty amazing. Another artist who is documenting from an interesting angle is Brett Story, who just finished her PhD in geography at University of Toronto and made a film The Prison In Twelve Landscapes about the influence of prisons on public systems, cities and economics.

I thought it was one of the best films of It seems the skills to code all this might beyond most people? Am I right, or am I just a luddite? Could Through a Penal System, Darkly be used as a template for other projects?

Thank you! I am grateful to Osgoode Hall Law School for generously providing the resources developers, hosting, etc to bring to life the idea in my head. I would love to use it as a template for future projects. These types of projects are expensive and there is some risk.

Another major project also map-based that I worked on across seven Balkan countries with multiple arts organisations and which was funded by major European institutions went offline in because Google stopped supporting the web-based map platform on which the entire site was built. And, poof! The cost of rebuilding it is too high and the momentum to search for support has passed. In-depth multimedia web projects are tricky things.

How and where do you want the work to sit? What do you hope it will do? I hope the work sparks reaction and thought. It would be great if my own small contribution could inspire a change in the direction and tone of the conversation around decarceration.

I hope the website will continue to be used as a resource at Osgoode Hall Law School. When Jeremy Kohm sent through this portrait, I saw the boots and the overalls and presumed it was a photo story on fishermen or lumberjacks.

A trainee prison guard. Kingston, with a population of approximately ,, is located on the main highway roughly at the midpoint between Toronto and Montreal. When talking to the trainees what struck me the most was the brief nature of the job training program.

It consists of four phases; weeks of online training, weeks of workbook assignments, 8 weeks of practical training and then 2 weeks of on-site training.