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John Howard Society
The Prisoners’ Aid Association
In 1874, John W. Langmuir, the Inspector of Prisons of Ontario, needed clergy to serve as chaplains for the newly-constructed provincial Central Prison in Toronto. He approached the Toronto Jail Mission, a group of about 40 volunteers operating a Protestant Sunday School at the Don Jail. That year, the Mission changed its name to the Prisoner’s Aid Society, also known as the Prisoner’s Aid Association (PAA).
Prominent Torontonians led the PAA, but on-the-ground volunteers were a mix of teachers, preachers, and students from nearby religious schools. The Association pushed for prison reform and provided assistance to people after they left prison, offering employment services and distributing furniture and clothes. They also visited the families of incarcerated people to provide aid if needed.
Their primary objective, however, was to rehabilitate prisoners through conversion to the Protestant faith. Volunteers ran a Sunday School every second Sunday and held Christmas dinners.
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John Howard Society
Toronto Central Prison
Langmuir and the administrators of the Central Prison, as well as the PAA, believed that rehabilitation depended on harsh discipline and industrial labour. In 1877, an internal inquiry detailed the cruelty inflicted on prisoners, encouraged by warden William S. Prince and deputy chief Richard Stedman. Stedman resigned as a result of the inquiry and Prince resigned in 1881, but the culture of brutality remained.
Langmuir’s vision for Central Prison was to generate revenue through prisoner labour. His influences included the profitable prisons he had toured in the United States, and the common belief of the time that idleness led to criminal behaviour. At first, Langmuir organised work for prisoners with the Canada Car Company making railway cars, however the Company soon failed.
The Central Prison had long been unsuccessful in delivering Langmuir’s goals: Harsh treatment of prisoners did not lessen criminal activity, and the prison was not profitable. This influenced the Prison’s closure in 1915, and the PAA became inactive.
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John Howard Society
The Citizens Service Association
In 1929, Chief of Police Dennis Draper, another harsh disciplinarian, reformed the PAA as the Citizens Service Association. Its goal was to help people previously in prison find work and housing. Dennis Draper’s involvement may have come from a desire to control the type of work placements offered, as he was known to actively veto public-facing job opportunities for people leaving prison, such as taxi driving.
The Citizens Service Association became the John Howard Society in 1946. John Howard was an 18th century English nobleman who had experienced incarceration and later toured hundreds of prisons internationally, writing influential works about prison conditions and the need for reform.
John Howard Societies opened in provinces across Canada between 1947 and 1960, and by 1962 it had become a national organisation. The Society provides services for previously incarcerated people, including reintegration and counselling programs, as well as youth programs for crime prevention
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John Howard Society
40 Recommendations for Reform
In 1892, the Prisoners’ Aid Association published 40 recommendations for prison reform. The PAA had been pushing for similar changes since the 1870s. Top priorities included distinct treatment of children in the prison system, implementing a parole system, and decriminalising vagrancy, or homelessness.
The Association suggested that no child under 14 should be committed to a common jail or prison, or should be arrested publicly or tried in public, as this would destroy their reputation forever. The PAA believed children ages 16 and under should be housed in a reformatory separate from adult prisons, and that sentences should take into account the children’s age and maturity. The Association also advocated strongly for children and adults convicted of vagrancy, stating that they had no business serving prison sentences.
Toronto’s first juvenile court opened in the same year. The Ontario government enacted additional policies in 1894 and 1908 which ensured that young offenders had more options for sentencing other than prison, including being under the care of the Children’s Aid Society.
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John Howard Society
Parole Reform
Members of Toronto’s charities influenced prison reform on a national level. Beginning in 1899, the Canadian government enacted a “ticket-of-leave” (parole) system to reduce prison sentences as a reward for good behaviour. To facilitate this, the government appointed Brigadier Walter Archibald as Canada’s first Parole Officer in 1905. Archibald previously ran Toronto’s Salvation Army Prison Gate Mission and used his new role to fight against corporal punishment and promote the use of parole as a reintegration tool. He also kept in contact with former parolees and helped them to find jobs after their release.
In 1956, the Fateux Report pushed for preventative justice where parole, traditionally viewed as a way to encourage ‘good behaviour’ in exchange for shorter sentences, could be used to strengthen reentry programs through conditional release. John A. Edmison, then-director of the John Howard Society of Ontario, was part of the report committee. The Report led to the creation of the Parole Board of Canada, as well as more robust reintegration support programs.
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John Howard Society
Additional Resources
Butts, Edward. Running With Dillinger: The Story of Red Hamilton and Other Forgotten Canadian Outlaws. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2008.
John Howard Society of Toronto website
Oliver, Peter. Terror to Evil-Doers:- Prisons and Punishment in Nineteenth-Century Ontario. Toronto: Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, 1998
Plummer, Kevin. “Get Draper! The Scandal-Plagued Career of Toronto’s “Most Incompetent and Clownish” Police Chief.” Torontoist. September 5, 2015.
Wetherell, Donald. “To Discipline and Train: Adult Rehabilitation Programmes in Ontario Prisons, 1874-1900”. Social History, Vol. 12, No. 23., May 1979.
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