Hell House: Why the Don Jail is a wretched, dangerous dungeon that should have been shut down ages ago
Last year, Jeff Munro was beaten to death at the Don Jail over a bag of chips. His fate was not unusual. The Don is a wretched, dangerous dungeon that should have been shut down ages ago. Instead, it’s where we send people who haven’t yet been convicted of anything
On a Sunday last November, Christine Munro was putting the Christmas tree up early, just like she does every year, when two police officers came to her door. Christine is a dental assistant and mother of four. She lives on a quiet cul-de-sac in Paris, Ontario, with her husband, Paul, who is a mechanic, and their 15-year-old son, Devon. She also has two grown daughters, Brittany and Melanie, who visit often. When Christine saw the officers on her front porch, however, her thoughts immediately jumped to her eldest child. “I opened my door and said, ‘Please don’t tell me it’s about Jeff.’ ”
It was. Five days before, the officers explained, Jeff, a diagnosed schizophrenic, had been spotted exposing himself on the street. He was arrested on Yonge near Davenport. It wasn’t Jeff’s first arrest. He was known to police, but in the past they’d usually delivered him to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. This time, they took him to the Toronto Jail—the red brick building at Broadview and Gerrard that, despite its official name, just about everyone still calls the Don. In the jail, three other prisoners—Troy Victor Campbell, Osman Sarikaya and Kevin Andre Veiro, all in their early 20s—accused Jeff of stealing a bag of chips and, in retaliation, allegedly punched and kicked him to death. When a guard found Jeff slumped in his cell, he had what the police report called “obvious signs of trauma to the face.”
Christine had been dreading the moment for years. As a teen, Jeff had often prank-called his mother, using funny accents to tell her wild stories, but as he grew older the stories grew darker and began to seem more like the inventions of a troubled mind. By the age of 24, he had developed an addiction to crystal meth, quit his job as a professional dancer for an American cruise line, and started moving from city to city. Christine can’t count the number of times she was woken up by the phone in the middle of the night—someone from a hospital telling her that they had her mentally unstable son, or a panicked Jeff himself, warning her of outlandish plots and powerful people out to get him.
In 2004, Jeff was arrested outside Walt Disney Studios in Los Angeles for harassing executives who he claimed were threatening him. He was deported and settled in Toronto, where he bounced between homeless shelters and was admitted several times to CAMH. On a visit home in 2005, he brought a collection of stuffed animals that he wanted to give to Brittany and Devon. Before Jeff left, Christine remembers walking into the family room in the basement and finding him on the couch, clutching the toys with tears in his eyes. “He told me that he didn’t own his own life,” says Christine. “He was caught up in something that was more than he could handle.”
Christine’s biggest fear was that he would overdose or he’d forget her phone number and drift away like so many of the other men on Toronto’s streets. The news of his death knocked the wind out of her.
At Jeff’s funeral, Christine gasped when she saw her 31-year-old son in his casket. He looked so changed, she didn’t recognize him. Jeff’s sister Melanie was convinced that the police had the wrong man. She had to examine his hand and find the distinctive mole the two of them share before she could believe the body in front of her had once been her brother.
Why was Jeff Munro, with his history of mental illness, placed in the Don? Run by the province, the Don isn’t a prison for convicted criminals. It’s where prisoners, before either being sent home or shipped out to serve their sentence, await bail hearings or trials for everything from breach of probation to murder. Pressed up against the grey stone of the old Don Jail, which closed more than 30 years ago, the current facility, built in 1958, is a drab, anonymous building. A public library is nearby, and across the street a bar and grill runs a modest side business charging two bucks to hold people’s cellphones while they visit their loved ones in jail, where the devices are banned.
The Don has a capacity of 562 inmates, but on any given night it can hold more than 650 men. Despite federal directives that say single-bunking is the most “correctionally appropriate” policy, the jail often houses three prisoners to a cell—two in bunk beds and a third on a mattress on the floor wedged between the toilet and the wall.
The prison is a cement box, the floor, walls and steel bars all painted a neutral white caked with grime. It’s noisy, each of the units filled with the sounds of men shouting, banging the bars and arguing; wall-mounted TVs blare different channels. With hundreds of men living in cramped quarters, many of them taken directly off the streets, the smell is intense. The sound of the toilets is so loud, prisoners follow a self-imposed no-flushing policy throughout the night, and in the morning, the stench of human waste is unbearable. Drugs move freely through the Don, though correctional officers say that the odd whiff of pot is a welcome respite from the stink of urine, vomit and sweat. The jail is also overrun with mice, cockroaches and a generous variety of infectious diseases. The Don’s guards have one of the highest sick rates of any correctional officers in the province, not just because of the unhealthy conditions, but also because they hate going to work.
In 2003, while sentencing a man who had brought a gun to a crowded bar in search of revenge, Ontario Justice Richard Schneider called the Don “an embarrassment to the Canadian criminal justice system” and made the precedent-setting decision to award the gunman with three days for every day spent on remand, instead of the usual two-for-one sentencing. In a separate ruling later that year, Schneider said that the Don didn’t even comply with the UN’s minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners.
The jail is overrun with mice, cockroaches and infectious diseases. The sound of the toilets is so loud, prisoners follow a self-imposed no-flushing policy throughout the night, and in the morning, the stench of human waste is unbearable
Jeff Munro’s death prompted a renewed spate of condemnations, which only grew more intense when the violent incidents continued. On November 11, just five days after Jeff’s murder, Kevin Pereira, a Don Jail prisoner held on drug charges that were later withdrawn, was found viciously beaten in a common area. He was taken to hospital with no vital signs but has since recovered. Two months later, on January 2, Kevon Phillip, a 24-year-old awaiting deportation to Trinidad, became the city’s first homicide of the year when he was beaten to death in his cellblock.
When Christine heard about Phillip, she realized her son’s death wasn’t an anomaly. There was something seriously wrong at the Don, and she wanted someone to be held responsible. Last May, the Munro family announced that they were suing the jail, the Toronto police, and the alleged murderers for the wrongful death of Jeff Munro. The family is represented by Barry Swadron, a defence lawyer and an expert on mental health issues who helped draft the 1967 Mental Health Act.
There is a method for determining compensation for a death—whether the victim has any dependants, his or her earning capacity, and so on. As Christine and Swadron went through the list, they realized that Jeff’s life was not worth much. They’re suing for a total of $170,000. But the money, all of which will likely go to legal fees, isn’t the point. Christine wants to know why Jeff, with his history of mental illness, was placed in a unit with dangerous criminals. She wants to know why her son was murdered under the watch of correctional officers who were unable to do anything about it. And she wants to know how the province allowed the Don to become the place it is today, a jail almost universally acknowledged as an inhumane, overcrowded tinderbox waiting to erupt.
Last July, I visited a dusty site near Islington and the Gardiner Expressway, where construction workers were building the future of Toronto incarceration. Toy box–yellow backhoes shifted dirt, while crews of men stooped in trenches, laying out thick green PVC pipes in parallel lines. At the centre of the site, people in orange safety vests clambered over the metal skeleton of a huge new structure that was rising from the gravel and dirt. A vinyl banner on the surrounding chain-link fence introduced the site to passersby: “Toronto South Detention Centre… Modern, state-of-the-art… Built to the highest technology and security standards.”
The Toronto South, according to the Ministry, will be a vast improvement over the Don. The new jail will include a large special needs unit for mentally ill prisoners, with full-time medical professionals on hand to deal with them. It will have 1,650 beds: not just enough to house all of the Don’s current prisoners, but enough to house criminals well into the future—criminals who haven’t yet committed their first crimes, criminals who haven’t yet been born.
The jail is scheduled to be completed in 2013, 17 years after it was first promised by the province. The Don, if all goes according to plan, will empty of prisoners and close its doors shortly thereafter. However, if the history of Toronto’s most notorious jail demonstrates anything, it’s that it’s wise to be wary of high-minded talk about prison reform.
For as long as there has been a country called Canada, there has been a Don Jail, and for as long as there has been a Don Jail, it has been infamous. The original Don Jail was designed as a modern institution built on advanced ideas about punitive justice. Based on a British model, it would have a central observation post from which guards could watch their prisoners, who would live in cells that had access to light and heat. On October 25, 1859, Mayor Adam Wilson presented a silver trowel to the head of the Masonic Order to lay the cornerstone of the Don in a lavish ceremony attended by politicians, firefighters, masons and other dignitaries.
When the jail opened its doors five years later, it became clear that it wasn’t the place of humane incarceration that had been promised. The cells were tiny, some just 86 centimetres wide. Within a few decades, conditions had deteriorated to the point where the Provincial Inspector of Prisons described it as “the worst jail on the Continent of America.” That kind of full-voiced criticism would become commonplace. Over the years, the old Don has been described as “an overcrowded dungeon” and “an insult to humanity,” and compared to the Black Hole of Calcutta. It was the site of 70 hangings, including the executions of Ronald Turpin and Arthur Lucas, the final hangings in Canada before capital punishment was abolished in 1976.
In 1977, the old Don was closed. Architectural preservationists saved the building itself from being demolished, but the gallows were destroyed before macabre souvenir seekers could get their hands on them. With the old building shuttered, the new Don became the primary jail for downtown Toronto. It, too, had initially been touted as the “ultimate in sanitation and health,” and it, too, became as notorious as its predecessor. In 1982, after severe criticism about the continual overcrowding of cells, the province made vague promises to remedy the situation. In the late ’90s, in its annual human rights reports on all UN members, the U.S. State Department singled out the Don, writing that conditions were “so depressing that some inmates purportedly pled guilty in order to be sent to other facilities and thus avoid awaiting trial in the jail.”
The condemnations go on and on. To study the history of the Don Jail is to experience an almost vertiginous feeling of déjà vu. Time after time, prison guards complain about the danger of stuffing that many men in a too-small box. Judges, inquests, commissions and political leaders call for its closure. Public officials vow to change things. New solutions are always just around the corner. The Don is always about to be fixed.
When Jeff Munro arrived at the Don last November, he was taken in through the gaping basement entrance and processed, just like all incoming inmates. At the Don, there are accused murderers and drug dealers, but also people like Jeff—the homeless, drug addicts and schizophrenics, who are routinely shuttled in and out because we’ve yet to figure out a better place to keep them.
More than a third of all inmates in Ontario’s prisons suffer from some form of mental illness, though the Don routinely houses a higher percentage than other Ontario jails. When the mentally ill are processed, the most extreme cases—people who are judged to be dangerous to themselves or other prisoners—are put into segregation units. Solitary confinement was designed to be punitive—the ultimate violence a state could inflict on one of its citizens—but today it’s used to hold the most vulnerable prisoners. After a tour of the Don’s segregation unit in 2009, NDP justice critic Peter Kormos reported seeing urine flowing out from underneath the door of a cell where a mentally ill patient howled ceaselessly.
If a prisoner is judged to have less severe mental problems, or if the segregation units happen to be full that day, he is sent to the special needs unit. Correctional officers dread working there because of the smell and the noise. Female officers tend to avoid it, put off by the frequent sight of prisoners masturbating in their cells. This was where Jeff Munro was placed.
Crystal Robbescheuten, a correctional officer, was working the day Jeff died. She describes him as a quiet guy, an easy prisoner. Robbescheuten is a 35-year-old single mother of two with a deep tan and a chirpy, cheerful voice she uses to deliver blunt truths about her place of employment. Over her 13 years at the institution as a CO and now acting president of Local 530, she has become intimately acquainted with the way the Don works. “I have seen more than my fair share of murders, beatings, sudden deaths and suicides,” she told me. She isn’t a bleeding-heart prisoners’ rights activist. When training new recruits, she likes to play something called “the no game,” designed to teach a rookie CO the necessary attitude for the job. The rules are simple: the two officers sit at their desks, write their names at the top of a sheet, and keep track of how many times they say “no” in the course of a day. “An inmate will come up and say, ‘Can I get my cell opened?’ And I’ll say, ‘No, absolutely not,’ ” Robbescheuten explained. At the end of the shift, whoever has the most “no’s” wins dinner. Still, Robbescheuten says that conditions for prisoners at the Don are appalling. “It’s a poor, poor environment. Dirty, dingy, just a disgusting place.”
On November 7, when staff found Munro in his cell, they immediately sounded a medical alert. By the time Robbescheuten arrived, guards and nurses were already inside Munro’s cell, trying to revive him. Robbescheuten says staff began taking Jeff out of his cell in order to transport him to hospital. When the paramedics arrived, however, they pronounced him dead, so his body remained at the jail for the police and the coroner to deal with, and the unit was shut down for an investigation.
She calls what happened to Jeff “a beating that went too far.” It’s a phrase that contains an important distinction: beatings are commonplace at the Don—it’s only the ones that get out of hand that are cause for alarm. Prisoner assaults happen every day, she says, sometimes in front of correctional officers. After 13 years, she’s developed a good enough ear to recognize a serious assault by the sound of the inmates’ provincially issued rubber shoes against the floor. “When there’s a lot of squeaking, you know something’s going on that you should check out,” she explains. Most of the time, though, she discovers a fight only after the fact, when she finds a bloodied, bruised prisoner who almost always declines to talk about the incident.
As I spoke to people about the Don, I frequently heard that the prisoners run the jail. Gangs allegedly operate from within the prison walls, and correctional officers have a hard time simply maintaining order. It’s a characterization the Ministry vigorously disputes, but Eduardo Almeida, chair of the corrections section of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, believes it has a kernel of truth. He says that one of the reasons it’s difficult for COs to control prisoners in the Don is that there’s no system of rewards or punishments. The segregation cells, which were once used to punish prisoners, are filled with the mentally ill (and in many cases, the private cells are preferable to being triple-bunked in the general population anyway). And in the cramped maximum-security facility, there aren’t any privileges you can take away from a prisoner. “There are no incentives,” says Almeida. “The only method officers have to maintain order is physical force, which no one likes to use.”
The province is building a new, more spacious prison to replace the Don. If the history of Toronto’s most notorious jail demonstrates anything, though, it’s to be wary of high-minded talk of prison reform
Guards believe that a larger staff would make the Don a safer place. Currently, two officers are in charge of up to 79 prisoners in a single unit. It’s a standard ratio across Ontario jails, but they feel it’s insufficient at the volatile Don. The Ministry doesn’t see it that way. Steven Small is the assistant deputy minister who oversees all 31 of Ontario’s provincial prisons. Just a year and a half ago, he was superintendent of the Don, so he knows the institution well. “I don’t think the jail is understaffed,” Small says. “The provision of additional staff doesn’t necessarily provide additional supervision. It depends on where they’re placed, what shift schedule they’re placed on, et cetera.”
Even if the province wanted to hire new correctional officers, it couldn’t. In December 2009, the Ministry suspended all recruitment programs for COs while it overhauls the entire vetting process. Apparently potential guards were lying on their applications. In some cases, girlfriends of gang members were enrolling to become COs. Even once the training program begins producing officers, however, it’s hard to find people willing to work at a place with the Don’s reputation. “We have a lot of vacancies,” says Robbescheuten. “Nobody wants to go to the Don.”
Some days, there aren’t enough officers to run the prison’s most basic programs. According to standard operating procedures, prisoners are entitled to 20 minutes of fresh air a day. When the Don lacks sufficient officers, and this happens a lot, that time is cut. Likewise, programs run by outside organizations like the Salvation Army and John Howard Society and even visiting hours are frequently cancelled, leaving hundreds of prisoners stuck in their crowded cellblocks for days at a time.
In the years since the original Don was first built, there has been much discussion among criminologists, public policy analysts and legal scholars about what corrections should do. Depriving a citizen of his or her freedom is a serious responsibility for the state. Theories of incarceration have come and gone. Should the primary aim be rehabilitation? Providing the prisoner with opportunity to reintegrate with society? Just punishment? The Don Jail does none of these things, not officially. Because prisoners are, in theory, supposed to spend no more than a few weeks at the Don, there is little attempt to rehabilitate. (In reality, prisoners can be locked up for months.) Because it houses people who are “presumed innocent,” the jail is not even intended to be punitive. It is a warehouse. And yet prisoners at the Don are treated worse than the most dangerous convicted criminals serving time in federal penitentiaries.
If the Don really is demolished in three years, a particularly dark corner of Toronto will finally be eliminated. Building a massive new jail to house more and more Torontonians is a simplistic solution to a complicated situation. “Alternatives to prisons could ease the overcrowding,” says Greg Rogers, the executive director of the John Howard Society’s Toronto branch. “Stop using it as a place to stick the homeless and mentally ill when you have no place else to stick them.” A recent report by John Howard showed that one in five prisoners going into Toronto jails is homeless. Unsurprisingly, an even higher percentage of prisoners, almost one in three, expect to be homeless when they get out.
When Christine Munro thinks about the Don finally closing, she feels nothing but relief. “No one deserves to be treated the way Jeff was,” she says. For the moment, her lawsuit is stalled. Her lawyer is insisting that police should have taken Jeff to CAMH. The police usually recommend a psychiatric assessment of incoming prisoners. That never happened. The police insist it isn’t their responsibility. The force’s statement of defence says that Jeff “seemed clearly capable of appreciating the circumstances” when he was arrested. They’re essentially saying any responsibility for Jeff’s death lies with the jail and with his murderers. The Ministry’s statement of defence, meanwhile, places the responsibility with the police.
The problems highlighted by Jeff Munro’s murder go well beyond a single institution and get at a more fundamental question. How do we want to treat our prisoners? Winston Churchill once said that “the mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country.” In Canada, the past decades have seen a hardening of public opinion against prisoners. As crime rates across the country fall, the popularity of “tough on crime” policies only increases. The rights of victims are pitted against the rights of prisoners, as if the two somehow had an inverse relationship.
The Don Jail is a rare case of a public institution with no defenders—not the ministry that runs it, not the people who work there. It is a brick-and-mortar monument to civic and political indifference. The jail has been denounced so many times that the criticisms have lost their sting. Most Torontonians have become inured to the fact that their city’s primary jail is a dungeon.
“Most Torontonians have become inured to the fact that their city’s primary jail is a dungeon.”
You mean the the Don Jail is “a dark usually underground prison or vault” (taken from the Merriam Webster Dictionary)?
Yes…the Don Jail is a prison…it may be dark…and some of the cells may be underground…in which case it could be referred to as a dungeon. Talk about stating the obvious. Who edits this crap?!?
And yes…it’s a jail!!! It’s not Disneyland, people. What do you expect a jail to be like? This is not a 5-star hotel.
Yes…I get that maybe Jeff was more appropriate for CAMH and eventually would have been assessed and transferred there…but you don’t admit everyone to a hospital, who is exhibiting unusual behaviour. If someone is having a psychotic event or is a danger to himself or other inmates…then you admit them. His death, while tragic is probably not an unusual occurrance in the prison system in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, North America…hell…the world. Beatings happen in prisons everywhere…that’s what happens when you put violent and unstable individuals in one place.
Non-story.
My heart goes out to the Munro family. That must have been horrible to deal with. Good for the Munro’s for taking a stand and making this public knowledge. Thank you!
Gina, there are 7 pages of reasons why this is a story before the very last line of the article that you parse out. Did you read them?
It’s pretty simple: the jail doesn’t meet any of the safety, sanitary or human rights standards which our prisons do (or are supposed to). It’s therefore being replaced by one that does, many years late. This one person’s story is a way of relating how all these problems manifest themselves.
The closing of one of Toronto’s darkest chapters seems pretty significant to me.
Hey Gina,
Quoting the dictionary’s literal definition of a dungeon, or alluding to the Don Jail as the antithesis of a ‘Disneyland’ environment greatly misses the point of this piece.
This story represents a failure in our city to adequately deal with Toronto’s mentally ill population. The Don Jail is overcrowded, understaffed and ill-equipped to deal with the subtleties of criminal behaviour. The “you did something bad = you go to jail” mentality of dealing with Toronto’s criminal element is only a band-aid solution.
If we, as a society, are to take away individual rights and freedoms as recourse for misdeeds, then we owe it to those individuals to at least treat them with some measure human dignity. To throw your hands in the air and say “hey, it’s jail. What did you expect,” is so brutally irresponsible, it’s downright laughable.
You’re right to say that jail shouldn’t be Disneyland, but it also shouldn’t be a cramped and neglected facility that leaves prisoners devoid of their dignity. Environments like this are powder kegs for violence.
instead of focusing on the semantics of the article, perhaps you should focus on why it is you find it so easy to sweep those in need of mental help under the rug and out of sight. Whatever helps you sleep better at night…
Gina…why don’t you go spend a weekend at the Don and let us know your thoughts on living conditions. Although these are criminals they still have rights.
Gina
As the sister of Jeff Munro, I am still trying to grasp my head around your thoughts as posted above. I like anyone, know that jail is not a “Disneyland” but there are standards that should be met, none which have been with the Don. You have no facts, you are simply stating the obvious. I am deeply saddened by the death of my brother and now have to write a victim impact statement on how this has affected my life. I truly believe that if this was you in this position, there would be no comment as above. Until you walk a day in my family shoes, you should know that we will fight to have things changed in our correctional facilities, as I’m sure you would if the tables were turned.
hey Gina It sounds like everyone is beating on you for your comment and guess what…. here comes another one!
Why dont you take some time and read the article a little slower before posting another comment. Yes these people are prisoners and yes they are there for a reason. However, it sounds from this article as thou our local pound has better hygiene standards than this place that is housing human beings!
I may be a little more apt to defend the Munro family as I am friends with the family but with that said Gina, I woul dlove for you to spent 12 hours in an environment where urine is freely flowing under doors. I have an older brother myself and you bet your ass I would be doing everything in my power to have his story heard!
Have some compassion and sensitivity if you choose to repost on this article
We love you Mel and Chris!
a very troubling article and my heart goes out to the Munro family. What this article leaves out is what happened to the scumbags who actually killed Mr. Munro, who they were and where they came from. As bad as the Don Jail is, and as much as it should be replaced, and as much as this kind of facility is no place for the mentally ill and addicted, “the system” didn’t kill him. Other humans did.
Basically at the end of the day , it doesn’t matter what you do you get sent to jail. you are presumed guilty until proven innocent. So to those who feel as though the inmates are getting what they deserve, .. take a step back and think. what if that was you; your brother; your dad; uncle even… No one deserves to be treated like sacks of bones and useless. My brother-in-law is in there right now actually and for something that he did not do what so ever. the fact that the court system is so over crowded cases are being push back and back and even bail hearings are delayed. Even with evidence that states a person being innocent, people are still be held in jail to await there trial dates. jail is not a pretty thing to go through and cases where people are getting beat up in there for absolutely nothing is the “norm” at the Don. My husband was remanded there, and he got stabbed with a pen. A PEN! not one stab, but multiple stabs and do you think they did anything, no. of course not. There were no cameras supposedly so nothing was seen. we both tried to fight they system, but the fact that we dont have the financial ability to makes it hard. Its really unfortunate that this is still going on, and no one is doing anything to fix it.
unfortunately this is the world we live in.
My condolences to the Munro family.
We must change a system that punishes the innocent along with the guilty. Being accused of a crime does not mean one is a criminal. Let’s start by treating people who have been arrested, but not convicted, with decency and respect, and have a proper regard for their health and safety.
@Gina, you are a heartless person.
Prisoners are human beings too and they will enter society at some point. They have the right to humane conditions and treatment. THe police yet again mis-treated this mentally ill man by putting him in a PRISON rather than CAMH.
A country is defined by how it TREATS it prisoners. No prisoner should be subject to any form of torture and should have access to safe security.
The prison industrial complex is a for-profit government business. Is this how we rehabilitate the delinquent? Often times being peope from poor, marginalized and oppresed communities?
In solidarity with the Georgia Prison strike, the largest in US history happening RIGHT NOW but the media monopoly has chosen to WHITEOUT any coverage.
Good thing you commented on it then Gina, so that we’d all know this was useless. Can anyone say dried-up curmudgeon?
Hey,Gina,guess what I was at the Don Jail this past 2010
and there’s a unit called tower four that deals with criminals with menal illness,I have seen
the conditions it is a hellhold.
Hey Gina
Before you post try reading facts. Just because they are in jail does not mean they don’t deserve security. Jeff is a victim of the prison system.
@ EVERYONE except Gina. Gina said what needed to be said, and she is not heartless or any other non-sense u people were claming she was. When the cops see someone doing somthing wrong they arrest them to protect anyone they could harm. 99% of the time you would NEVER know a people is schizophrenic UNLESS u watch them for a lil bit. Im sure the cops saw this dude showing his dick off in public and quickly arrested him and brought him to the jail. When somone is scared they tend not to say anything and a person who is schizophrenic AND SCARED, usally they won’t say anything for sure so it was proply very hard for the cops to see he was mentally ill rather then a crazy person. NOW that all being said the kid died cause he took somones chips. When your locked up u have NOTHING, soo anything that is yours like a bag of chips and whatnot are your prized possesion and u don’t let anybody take that away. Now think about living all ruff for a while, and all of a sudden somone takes your snack, YOU’LL FREAK OUT and in jail theres a lot of people who think there big shit, SOOO people hurt other immates when they touch there stuff. IN CONCLUSION i can sure as hell bet most of you only “know” a person in jail and haven’t have a clue how WELL the system actually works. So open your eyes and understand Gina said nothing wrong, and im sorry to the family of Jeff but don’t push the blame on the system, it was the humans that killed jeff, NOT the system.
Please don’t assume that because you read something in print that all the facts are correct. First off, if your gonna write a story about the Don Jail please use photos that show the current Don Jail and not the old unused and condemned Don Jail that hasn’t housed in inmate in over 30 years! Its not fair to mislead your readers into thinking that those pictures are accurately showing what the Don Jail is today. Yes it is over crowded and at times under staffed but unless you have been there personally yourself, which conveniently all those who condemn it haven’t, please refrain from using your imagination. This isn’t Oz folks. Watch a documentary of the prisons in South America, Asia or even the United States and you will see how in comparison the Don Jail fails to even approximate the violence and corruption rampant in these places. It may be true that the Don jail isn’t our finest stab at correcting criminal behaviour but what jail is? At least we can proudly say that correctional officers go home safe everyday and have always at the Don Jail which unfortunately is not so true of correctional officers working in jails around the world. Thats got to mean something. Be wary of a good story because sometimes thats all it is!!
How many of you posting to this link have ever done time in the don? You’ll never appreceiate the institutional psychodrama that is unique to this one jail which is a part and “apart” from the ministrry of corrections. There is no one experience within the justice system that fully changes a human being as does this detention centre. Upon its’ closing I will thank the gods that I’ll never again have to go through A&D take an elevator ride to 2c, 3a, 4c, south side or north and deal with a staff or prison population that is indifferent to the rights and dignity of any one human being. Good riddance and thanks for nothing Don jail. You’ve changed all how’ve walked your ranges and tried to stay unaffected. Be that con or screw. I don’t really see much difference.
Tobe honest system is wrong, the big fish all round and making more mess on people life,
police, crown, even your lawyer and judge, co-operating with big fish, and people innocently go to jail and losing their life, I am one of them, more than two years, I am back and forth to court, no one helping me, I know I did mistake, but when they threaten you and your family life in other country, what do you do,you can’t talk to police, police does not give you witness protection, police doesn’t care, police get paid, to torture you, I think Canada has worst system to defending on innocent people,
I was in the Don jail at the time of this incident but on a different range so I did not witness the murder. There are several problems with detention centres in Ontario for example….Innocent people are put in jail all the time sure probably about 95% or more did at least something wrong but in a detention center people are awaiting their day in court and for the most part have not been convicted yet. Given that we live in a free country and someone charged with a criminal offence in this country deserves their day in court we at least owe it to those who have not been convicted of an offence and trust me some of whom have done nothing wrong to make sure that they are not beaten to death over a bag of chips while awaiting trial. Believe me there are ways to easily prevent it, instead of having the guards sit away from the range they could sit in a caged off area totally safe where he can see and hear what is going on in the range and then would be able to stop murders from happening. There is a guard for each range sitting in a booth in a glassed off area why not have him on the range hes there anyway. Secondly if the guards are on the range they could separate those who wish to gang up with their friends on other prisoners.
worked at the jail from 72-77.
I was on the last hanging team in 75.Prisoner was commuted to life.He did his 25 and he is now back on tnhe street.
Iworked for 30 years in 4 different insts.
ed.
Gina heartless? Sadly too few people are “heartless” … Rather most are inane bleeding hearts, who in fact are the root of the broader victimization of many by the few.
Reality is cold, and people would prefer to “warm themselves” by thinking acts of kindness will turn reform evil individual … Or more childessly, that it will cure the mentally unstable. Jail should be punishment, it should be a place everyone fears to end up.
Grow up … Go ask victims of violence and parents of murdered innocents about the fate deserved by those who endanger the rest of us, better put – the fate earned by the underbelly of mankind. We paid for Karla to get a University degree in our prison system, no doubt that made her a wonderful human being that you’d trust to teach sex-ed.
Sad, misguided bleedinghardheads.
Wow,
A lot being said here, but my thoughts are this. Prison is for punishemen, however it sounds as though some of the individuals being held at the “Don”, have not been convicted yet. This leaves a whole window of oppourtunity for a person to be found not guilty(whether they are or not). The point….if you were being held @ the Don, and died before being found innocent it would rock your family. It would also mean the this system (as messed up or fair as ppl think of it) did not work and did not have a chance to work. Mental health is a tough avenue, but until we have a place that holds a person responsible in a way that relates to their mental illness..this is what we have. I agree again that prison is meant for punishment, however if we are going to “house” hardended criminals anyway then we have to take a look at the conditions. I agree that they should be able to live in an environment were they dont’ have to deal with urine ect everywhere…but allowing a person (while they are being punished) to get a free university degree; when law abiding citizens, (in some cases) aren’t even able..doesn’t compute for me.
The Munro family speaks about where there son should have been put when he was picked up….and with no disrespect meant. I wonder why he wasn’t already in a facility to get the help that he needed, preventing him from being in jail to begin with. Maybe we need to look at our mental health laws/act and change aspects of it. Maybe we need to look at our legal system and try to change it. At the end of the day NO ONE will be satisfied with the outcome. What is in the best interest of the people who are NOT going to jail and how do we best help those who need it to prevent overcrowded jail situations.
I really just worry about the person that gets put into this setting and is not supposed to be there (ie wrongly accused person ect).
Jeff did not have to die the way that he did, however there are many other factors that contributed to his death, the system being only one part of it.
Hey a lot of us never read these comments and don’t really care when someone goes to jail till one of our family members go throw the something my younger brother has taken to don jail for no reason and he has so many complaints about the guards and inmates there I would like some one to action about what’s happening in don jAil so we don’t see incents geting killed in there when 2 inmates fight what the fuck is does the guard do and why r the there for to take a free pay check .
I’m with Gina. What do these people expect?
Admittedly, I’ve never been to the Don or any other jail for that matter. BECAUSE I DON’T BREAK THE LAW!!! Nobody goes to jail ‘for no reason’. Give me a break! If everybody just abided by the laws we wouldn’t even be having this discussion!
My condolences go out to the family. Troy victor campbell is a moron. He used to live on my street . I hope you guys look him up in pc where he cant harm other people
Familys fault,wasn’t first time he’s been arrested? And cleary this guy was far from mentally stable or safe to a community,it disgusted me you would slow your unstable family member to be a threat to society.also if he had stole something from another inmate you should expect to be killed.
I am shocked to hear that in a country like our country, where every one in the world is dreaming to come in live in it, we have a jail that looks like old ages jails. The police did protect the society from Jeff. But who protected Jeff from the society. Whose responsibility is this. How could a mintally ill person be in preson without some one noticing that he is ill?? Didn’t any one talk to him? Didn’t any one spend 10 minutes to know that he has a problem? Is it hard to pull his record out of the archives? Come on, it is a press of a button. We live in Canada, we do not live in a third world country. A young man died, beaten to death, you, who read my comment imagine this is your brother or son or cusin, how would you think of this incident? I think someone needs to review the system again and see where the train went off the tracks, Human being’s dignity is guaranteed by the constitution of this country. This should stay the case if we want our next generations to live in dignity.
came to live in canada 1963 spent two short visits to both the new and old don finely spending 18 mths in guelph correctional institution had a great time fond memories would love to pay aa visit but got deported back to uk in 1966
hey gina i was at this shit hole 4 yrs ago not for rape, murder or beating anybody. a good jail beating is what i got thaugh at my arrival at the don for not giving them my sandwich, cause the corupt toronto cops didnt feed me while they keap me for 34 hrs no phone call, water, food or pipi time.
u will be happy to know it is no disneyland as u say. when ur not one of the gang dudes u r watching ur back n scared every minute. this is jail(acused) not prison(convicted) so gina if i would write u what i think it would be blocked so i will say some have done nothing or not enough to go to this dangerous, underfead awfull food, stinking s_it hole.
steven the other lightbulb more or less saying that the guy that got killed for showing his equipment deserved to go to a hell hole like the don. dosent toronto have hospitals. stop letting ur corupt cops put everybody in. what i saw n heard while i was going through the SYSTEM i would be scared to live in toronto and not because of street crime.
oh please to some of you bleeding hearts out there JEFF was sick he couldn’t help himself no he didn’t deserve what those lowest of lowlifes did to him unless you have had an experience where this has happened to your family member then I’d say don’t judge my son was murdered his killer only got 3yrs in prison when it comes to Justice I say our courts and jails are corrupt and our politicians as well and Canada I have lost all my respect for this so called country we live in I AM AN ASHAMED CANADIAN BOOOOOOOOOOO~
Well Michelle, you’ve forgotten the fact that innocent people can be charged!! You may not break the law but God forbid that you might ever be wrongly accused or mistaken identity, etc. And the Don is not a place for people that have “broken the law” ,,it is a HOLDING place for people who have been CHARGED with breaking the law..a big difference. My TWENTY year old son was mistakenly arrested last Sunday night when we were in Toronto for a family day weekend. He spent this past Monday night at the Don..he was released on Tuesday after all charges were dropped..But his experience at the Don has forever scarred his life..he was sexually assaulted. NO ONE deserves that even if they ARE guilty but especially not for his alleged misdemeanor crime. Your post infers that the people at the Don somehow deserve what happens to them!! You admit your ignorance,and fail to understand that not everyone in the Don has committed a crime and that even if they had, the human rights violations are unacceptable for ANY human being..