Promises Broken or Promises Kept? An Analysis of the Vision and Current Operation of the Toronto South Detention Centre

This study explores the justifications and realities of carceral expansion. It compares the vision for the Toronto South Detention Centre to its implementation once it opened in 2014. For this research, a thematic qualitative analysis was undertaken through collected news media and secondary sources. I conclude that the justifications used to legitimate the Toronto South Detention Centre run contrary to what has taken place at the facility as illustrated through several challenges and shortfalls. As such, this research adopts a penal abolitionist lens to contend for the adoption of alternatives to incarceration, as opposed to constructing larger carceral institutions due to the reality of jail expansion at the Toronto South Detention Centre. The project also adopts a public criminology lens to examine how the results of the study can be shared with a wider public audience outside of academia, in an attempt to influence public policy.