Location | Toronto, Ontario |
---|---|
Status | Closed |
Security class | Maximum |
Capacity | 336 |
Opened | 1873 |
Closed | 1915 |
Warden | William Stratton Prince (1873-1881) |
The Toronto Central Prison, also known as the Central Prison, Central Prison for Men, and more colloquially as The Toronto Jail (the third of four Toronto area jails to be given that nickname) was a prison in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was a 336-bed facility located near the intersection of King Street and Strachan Avenue. It opened in 1873, when the area was still well away from any residential development. The prison was intended as an industrial facility and began with the manufacturing of railway cars for the Canada Car Company. Hard work and discipline were considered the best forms of rehabilitation and active industry would raise money for the prison.
The prison should have flourished as an example of modern penal facility of its time, but by the 1880s it had a well-deserved reputation for brutality. Its first warden, William Stratton Prince, was an alcoholic ex-military officer who resigned as chief of the Toronto Police to take the position. During his tenure he was accused of ordering extreme beatings, denying medical treatment, and supporting clandestine, nighttime burials. Wardens that followed tried to adopt a less disciplinarian approach, but the guards continued to brutalize the inmates. [1] In 1911, Dr. J.T. Gilmour, one of the more reformist wardens, made news in the United States with his new outdoor work program, specifically one that allowed inmates to work without armed guards. [2] Dr. Gilmour's reforms were not enough to overcome the prison's reputation. The Toronto Historical Association sums up the facility's reputation: "Central Prison represents one of the most shameful parts of the city's history, and its severe conditions and brutality are shocking". [3]
In 1915, the prison was abandoned as changing attitudes toward crime and punishment led to a revamping of the province’s correctional system and replaced by the Ontario Reformatory in Guelph. For the next five years, the facility was used as an army base and a processing centre for new immigrants. In 1920, the main prison building was demolished and much of the land sold for use by the railroads. Remaining buildings ended up being used by Hobb's, Dr. Ballard's, and finally by the neighbouring John Inglis and Company Limited factory until 1981. During its operation the prison also had an out-camp with a shale and clay quarry on property in Mimico. That property and its buildings became part of what is now known as the Mimico Correctional Centre when the prison closed.
All that remains today is the Central Prison's Roman Catholic chapel on East Liberty Street (added to the main building in 1877) and a wall of the prison's paint shop. The chapel became part of the city’s inventory of heritage properties in 1985. [4] The wall is now part of the east wall of the A. R. Williams Company Liberty Storage Warehouse on Lynn Williams Street. The Williams company purchased the paint shop property after the closure of the prison and demolished the building. The Williams warehouse is itself now a listed heritage property. [5]
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The Minnesota Correction Facility – Stillwater (MCF-STW) is a close custody state prison for men in Bayport, Minnesota, United States. Built 1910–1914, it houses 1,600 inmates in seven different living areas. Additionally, approximately 100 inmates are housed in a nearby minimum security area. It replaced the original Minnesota Territorial Prison located just to the north in the city of Stillwater, Minnesota. Until recent expansion of the medium custody Minnesota Correctional Facility – Faribault, MCF-STW was the state's largest facility by inmate population. A historic district consisting of 22 contributing properties was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 as the State Prison Historic District for having state-level significance in architecture. It was nominated for being one of the nation's earliest and most influential appearances of the "telephone pole" layout, with a large main hallway connecting each of the units, that was widely adopted by high-security prisons. MCF-STW is noted for its award-winning publication The Prison Mirror, the oldest continuously-operated prison newspaper in the United States.
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The Minnesota Territorial Prison, later the Minnesota State Prison, was a prison in Stillwater, Minnesota, United States, in operation from 1853 to 1914. Construction of the prison began in 1851, shortly after Minnesota became a territory. The prison was replaced by the Minnesota Correctional Facility – Stillwater in nearby Bayport. Most of the original prison's structures were demolished in 1936, leaving only the 1853 Warden's House and a manual labor complex that had been constructed 1884–1898. The surviving factory buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 for having state-level significance in the themes of industry and social history. The historic site, long since unused, was destroyed by arson on September 3, 2002. It was formally delisted from the National Register in 2005.
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The Toronto Central Prison Chapel is an 1877 former Roman Catholic prison chapel, located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building is the last remaining building of the Toronto Central Prison complex which was located south of King Street and west of Strachan Avenue in Toronto. The other remaining portion of the prison is a wall of the prison's paint shop on the east side of the Liberty Storage Warehouse. The chapel was built by prisoners of the prison. The chapel was added to the city's list of heritage properties in 1985 and is protected from demolition, under the City of Toronto government by-law.
The Mimico Correctional Centre was a provincial medium-security correctional facility for adult male inmates serving a sentence of 2-years-less-a-day or less in Ontario, Canada. Its history can be traced back to 1887. The Mimico Correctional Centre is one of several facilities operated by the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services and was located at 130 Horner Avenue in the district of Etobicoke which is now a part of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The facility was closed in 2011 and demolished to make room for the new Toronto South Detention Centre which opened in 2014.
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