'Punched, kicked, bitten, stabbed': Assaults in northern Ontario jails hard to handle due to overcrowding

Correctional workers in northern Ontario say rising violence interior jails is being driven by overcrowding, leaving little space to separate inmates after an assault.

In some cases, the lack of space means the person who was attacked is moved and the aggressor remains in the same unit.

"We move the person who was assaulted," said Adam Cygler, a social worker at the Ontario Correctional Institute in Brampton.

"The people who were the aggressors in the incident, there's not really any other place to put them."

Cygler is also an elected representative on the Ministry of the Solicitor General's employee relations committee representing non-correctional staff across the system.

Leaving perpetrators in the same unit often results in an overall increase in tension, he added.

The nature of violence inside Ontario jails is also changing, according to Cygler.

"Historically, they were usually one-on-one fights. Now what’s happening is multiple inmates against one inmate."

Ken Steinbrunner, a correctional officer and president of the OPSEU local at the Monteith Correctional Complex near Iroquois Falls, said many violent incidents start with intimidation.

“Someone is what we call muscling or someone is forcing someone to give them their food… they’ll finally fight back and push back. And then there’ll be a slugfest,” Steinbrunner said.

"Most of the time, there's someone being victimized and maybe they stand up for themselves or somebody else stands up for someone else. And then they come to blows."

Steinbrunner said that when he first started working at the jail almost 25 years ago, most inmates were able to solve a conflict after a fight and live together in the same unit, but that's no longer the case.

"They bring the beef in from the street, the troubles in from the street. They just can't be around each other."

At the Thunder Bay Jail, OPSEU Local 737 president Tony Rojik said violence is often tied to overcrowding, gang presence and limited supports.

"We’ve seen a very large increase in southern Ontario gangs and whatnot over the past decade into the Thunder Bay area. These types of inmates come with a higher level of risk," he said.

"They tend to take over those units, they organize and various other things. That's where you'll see a lot of these higher, outmatched assaults happening."

He said staff are also dealing with more inmates struggling with mental health issues.

"We’re trained to de-escalate, we’re trained to control situations. However, we're not social workers or mental health nurses, and albeit we have those those resources on site, [but] they're spread very thin, and normally, they're not there in those moments when these individuals lash out or decide to assault an officer."

He also explained that while provincial union data on violence in jails can be helpful to see emerging trends, it often doesn't reveal the full picture.

According to OPSEU data, in the Thunder Bay Jail alone, there were 192 inmate-on-inmate assaults last year, a big jump from 115 in 2024 — despite a heating failure early in 2025 that left the facility mostly empty for months.

There are also issues related to overcrowding when it comes to inmates attacking correctional officers. Often, these inmates are reclassified as higher risk and moved to another facility nearby, but correctional workers say most northern Ontario institutions are often too full to accept a transfer.

Josh Miller, a correctional officer and local OPSEU president at the Algoma Treatment and Remand Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, said that in many northern facilities, inmates who assault staff remain in the same unit.

“We’re right back in the same living unit the next day, probably surrounded by all the offenders that just watched the assault yesterday. Sometimes that’s not too easy to deal with from a psychological standpoint."

Since most inmates who assault officers are on remand awaiting trial for a separate charge, Miller said, the resulting sentences are often served concurrently. This means the additional charges often result in no extra jail time.

Miller said judges often cite overcrowding and poor conditions in jails as a reason for not imposing additional time.

"In 29 years, I've been punched, kicked, bitten, stabbed, had every bodily fluid you can imagine thrown at me. And that's over 29 years. What I'm seeing is those things happening more and more and more frequently," he said.

"Instead of that experience being spread out over decades, now you're seeing it in the first two or three years of your career."

"The Ministry of the Solicitor General has a robust internal inmate misconduct policy in place to ensure those who engage in violent behaviour towards staff face misconduct penalties, such as loss of privileges and forfeiture of earned remission," Shvets said.

According to Cygler, the province is playing catch-up following years of underinvestment in Ontario’s correctional system. 

"The government is doing what they can to accelerate some of the new builds and new resources," he said.

"Just like any sort of public infrastructure, when there's an increasing population, we need to make sure that we're allocating funds, to build new schools, new hospitals, new roads, new water treatment centres. But also making sure that we're also modernizing and increasing the number of beds within our correctional system as the population grows so that we can provide effective care and treatment."

The province said there's been a $3-billion investment to expand and modernize correctional facilities across the province, including a new complex in Thunder Bay and additional beds in Niagara, Milton and Sudbury.

The solicitor general also said the government plans to unveil additional expansions, "adding hundred of new beds, to further increase capacity across the province."

Steinbrunner said an insufficient number of correctional workers needed to deliver educational, recreational, mental-health and other programs that could reduce tensions may also be contributing to violence.

"We only have so much room for so many offenders, so much program time, so much rec time. And we're not even meeting it now."

Steinbrunner said this problem persists even with the addition of new beds at the Monteith Correctional Complex. Ten new bunk beds are already installed, 10 more are on the way and rumours suggest another 10 could follow — for a total of 30 new beds. 

"Adding the beds doesn't add more bathrooms, doesn't add more showers, doesn't add more living space, doesn't add more rec opportunities, doesn't add more yard time, doesn't add anything other than they're sleeping in a proper bed."

Steinbrunner said while he understands bunks are being added to help alleviate overcrowding pressures across the region, he's worried the province won't be able to hire an additional staffing line due to an overall shortage of correctional workers.

The job comes with many positives — such as being in a government position with benefits and relative job safety compared to other professions — but those factors are outweighed by the dangers, he said.

"We're not adding anymore social workers or any more addiction counsellors, not adding more programming. So squeeze what you have in the what you got."

In the past six years, 3,300 correctional officers completed training and have been deployed to work at correctional institutions across the province, according to the the solicitor general.

But problems persist due to overcrowding and understaffing, said Steinbrunner.

"You could put me in there with three of my best friends and three of my closest family members, and within four or five months there's going to be a fight because people can't get along in these confined areas," he said.

"There’s a lack of proper programming, lack of proper supports, lack of pro social support in order for the system to actually work on maybe even reforming someone."

Reporter

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