NDP Leader Howard Hampton is challenging Premier Dalton McGuinty to accept an invitation to tour Toronto’s crumbling Don Jail.

Last Friday, Hampton and NDP Corrections Critic Peter Kormos accepted the invitation of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) to see first-hand the overcrowded jail’s squalid conditions.

“We weren’t there to sit down with administrators for a chat. We walked the halls of the facility and saw why Ontario Justice Richard Schneider called the facility an ‘embarrassment to the Canadian criminal justice system’. The Premier has received the same invitation I received. It’s time he took the same tour,” said Hampton.

“Will the Premier immediately begin to deal with the overcrowding in Ontario correctional facilities by visiting the Don Jail – or is he too afraid that in seeing it, he will have to actually do something about it?” asked Hampton

The Don Jail has, at times, been as high as 40 per cent over-capacity, with average prison loads exceeding 600. In 2003, the McGuinty Liberals vowed to deal with the problem immediately, yet a variety of health and safety issues persist.

“There is absolutely no excuse to continue to ignore the inhuman conditions that exist in Ontario jails like the Don – conditions that have gotten worse under the McGuinty government,” said Hampton.

“It’s a disgrace that jeopardizes the safety of corrections officers and administrative staff. It also poses a larger public safety threat across Ontario.”