Ontario hires 91 new correctional officers across province

The province has hired dozens of new correctional officers in a bid to boost staffing levels and improve safety at its jails.

The 91 incoming officers will work at 11 institutions across the province.

Seventeen of these new hires will be working at the South West Detention Centre on the outskirts of Windsor.

Lisa Gretzky, the MPP for Windsor West, said the increased staffing is welcomed, both in the Windsor area and elsewhere in Ontario.

"I think it's great that we're going to have some new corrections officers," said Gretzky, who previously served as her party's corrections critic.

But she isn't sure 17 new officers are enough to meet the needs of the local detention centre.

It is not immediately clear how much of a relative increase in staffing this is for the South West Detention Centre. 

Brent Ross, a spokesman for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, says the province does not divulge the total number of these workers at a given facility for security reasons.

But Ross said that with the addition of the 91 new hires, the province now employs 3,330 correctional officers across Ontario.

Facilities that will soon get new correctional officers include:

• Central East Correctional Centre.
• Central North Correctional Centre.
• Hamilton Wentworth Detention Centre.
• Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre.
• Maplehurst Correctional Complex.
• Niagara Detention Centre.
• Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre.
• South West Detention Centre.
• Sudbury Jail.
• Toronto East Detention Centre.
• Toronto South Detention Centre.

The 91 new hires join the 480 correctional officers who have been hired by the province since 2013.