New $8.5M jail in London, Ont., to house weekend offenders

A new $8.5-million jail will be built next to the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre in south London.

The facility will house what the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services calls intermittent offenders, those who serve their sentences on weekends.

The offenders will come from across southwestern Ontario.

Assistant Deputy Minister Steven Small says it will help deal with the problem of mixing weekend offenders with the general population of inmates at the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre.

Small said the new jail will have a separate entrance and will be self contained for rehabilitation programs, medical needs, meals and exercise.

"It will all be done separate and apart from the main general population," Small said. "The interior will include all appropriate security levels and features to safely and securely house intermittent offenders."

The ministry expects the new intermittent centre to be built in 10 months time.

The province closed jails in Windsor and Chatham after opening the new $38-million Southwest Detention Centre in Windsor, Ont.

Small said it's not at capacity, but cannot house intermittent offenders.

"Intermittent male inmates [from Windsor] are housed at Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre and for the foreseeable future they will be housed at the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre and eventually in this new regional intermittent centre," Small said.

CBC reported last September that Windsor's new jail was not able to accommodate all of the inmates who need to serve time on weekends. Officials at that time were already transferring inmates to the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre in London.