In May 2017, the Ontario government suddenly, and without consultation, announced plans to replace Ottawa’s crowded, much-criticized, and scandal-ridden Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre with a new jail that would hold 140 more prisoners — a 24 percent increase — and cost an estimated half a billion dollars or more. About two-thirds of prisoners currently in OCDC are on remand awaiting court dates in our increasingly clogged legal system, often as a result of bail breaches for relatively minor violations. This event seeks to initiate a public dialogue about whether the new jail is the most humane, productive, and cost-effective way to deal with social problems that affect Ottawa and much of the jail population such as poverty, homelessness, mental health, and drug and alcohol issues.
Join us on November 27th to listen to Dr. Aaron Doyle of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, along with Dr Erin Dej from the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, Dr Marilou Gagnon from the School of Nursing at the University of Ottawa and Overdose Prevention Ottawa, and Hawa Mohamed from the Canadian Somali Mothers Association and Dan Parlow, an Ojibway man and Carleton Criminology undergraduate who is a former prisoner.
Aaron Doyle was born in London, England and grew up in New Zealand and in Victoria, British Columbia. Prior to entering graduate school, he worked as a journalist for five years. He has a B.A. from the University of Victoria, an M.A. in Criminology from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of British Columbia. From 2000-2002, he held a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University. He joined the Sociology and Anthropology department in 2002.
Areas of Interest
Critical and public criminology, especially focusing on jails and prisons, and on relations between media, culture and criminal justice; risk, insurance, security, and governance; surveillance studies, especially camera surveillance; social movements and protest.
The aim of CU in the City is to share FASS research with the wider community by holding research talks in various Canadian cities. The CU in the City series will provide opportunities for FASS faculty and students to interact with one another off campus as well as strengthen ties between FASS and the general public.