Incarceration in Canada

[3] The correction system in Canada dates to French and British colonial settlement, when all crimes were deemed deserving of punishment.

Such was often meted out in public, as physical pain and humiliation were the preferred forms of punishment, including whipping, branding, and pillorying.

[4] In 1789, Philadelphian Quakers in the United States introduced the penitentiary as an alternative to such harsh punishment.

The concept of long-term imprisonment eventually spread to England as an alternative to exiling offenders to the penal colonies, including Canada.

This facility was built by the colonial government and, at the time of Confederation in 1867, it was under provincial jurisdiction (of the Province of Ontario).

In 1969, an experimental living unit was opened at medium-security Springhill Institution in Nova Scotia, as part of a community pilot program to aid inmates in preparing themselves for "outside" life.

Also in the 1960s and 1970s, various halfway houses were opened, as well as governments and community groups taking on the essential needs of ex-inmates by providing them with room and board, and often helping them find work, enroll in school, and obtain counselling services.

[5] Additionally, CSC also provides healing lodges specifically for Indigenous offenders, designed with the intention "to address factors that led to their incarceration and prepare them for reintegration into society.