Incarceration rates for women have doubled in the last 2 decades. Why is that?

An Edmonton men’s prison is being transformed into a women’s prison, reflecting a squeeze for space as the number of federally incarcerated women in Canada has nearly doubled in the last two decades.

Federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree confirmed the transition of Grierson Institution, a minimum-security prison, in a May 8 response to a written question from Alberta MP Dane Lloyd. 

The switch aims to make space for the rising number of women in custody, as there is an expected shortfall of more than 300 beds for federally incarcerated women in the next five years, the reply said.

The increase in women’s incarceration is linked to economic insecurity and tougher attitudes toward bail, experts say, raising concerns about overcrowding in women’s institutions. 

Factors include cost of living, mental health

Women make up only about six per cent of federally incarcerated people in Canada. But the number of women inmates has nearly doubled in the last two decades, from 445 in 2004-05 to 886 in 2025-26, according to the Correctional Service of Canada. 

The rise is linked to the rising cost of living and a lack of access to housing, employment and mental health support, according to Jerry Flores, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. 

“I’m not surprised that women’s rates of incarceration are increasing, because the precarity of all of our existence has increased as well,” said Flores, who is an expert on gender and crime.

Women who end up being incarcerated have often experienced abuse, which can push them toward shoplifting, substance abuse or sex work leading to criminal offences, Flores said. Without investment in social supports, the number of women imprisoned will likely continue to increase. 

Criminal defence lawyer Megan Schwartzentruber said she has seen the increase of incarcerated women in her own practice with Toronto-based law firm Cooper, Sandler, Shime & Schwartzentruber LLP. 

“When I started practising 16 years ago, it was rare to have female clients, let alone clients who were incarcerated,” Schwartzentruber said. 

She said pushes for tougher bail conditions in 2015 and since the COVID-19 pandemic have led to more accused individuals — including women — being remanded in custody or denied bail.

Indigenous and racialized women are disproportionately affected, Schwartzentruber said. In 2022-23, about half of incarcerated women were Indigenous, despite making up only about five per cent of Canada’s female population.

“I think the women that are being incarcerated is a symptom of the larger problem, which is just the overuse of incarceration in Canada, especially at the remand stage,” Schwartzentruber said. 

Overcrowded women’s prisons

The growing number of incarcerated women means prisons are “bursting at the seams,” said Fallon Aubée, 66, a former inmate and now a prison abolition advocate in British Columbia. She believes the expected 300-bed shortfall is a fraction of the space actually needed to accommodate incarcerated women in the coming years.

She likened prisons to “modern-day residential schools” and mental health wards, where overcrowding leads to a “stifling” environment of mounting tension and anger. 

Aubée, who is a two-spirit woman, spent 6½ years in a women’s institution, where she said the increasing violence was “staggering” compared to the 15½ years she spent in men’s prisons. Overcrowding also means there isn’t enough programming space, so inmates can’t access resources to help set themselves up for life after prison, she said. 

The government should focus on harm-reduction approaches and allow more people to serve time outside of prisons when possible, Aubée said. 

“The sentencing guidelines don’t mean you have to incarcerate everybody just because they step into a courtroom,” she said. “There’s alternatives to prisons that do work.” 

According to the public safety minister’s reply earlier this month, women’s prisons “are currently operating at or above their designed capacity” and steps are being taken to maximize existing space.

Planning is underway for transitioning Grierson Institution, but the Correctional Service of Canada was unable to provide information about the cost or timeline, the reply said.

The men held in Grierson “will be relocated to other institutions.”

In a statement to CBC News, the Correctional Service of Canada said it works to optimize bed space in prisons while supporting rehabilitation. Additionally, the service said it uses healing lodges and “structured community accommodation” to safely release inmates and “reduce institutional pressures.”

To address the growing number of women inmates, Flores said he foresees more men’s institutions being turned into women’s prisons, despite the fact that the former are also overcrowded.

The government may also consider the costly and time-consuming “knee-jerk reaction” of building more prisons, Flores said, though he suggested more social services and mental health supports would be a better investment. 

“I think it’s more humane and more economically prudent and savvy to try to stop some of these issues before they get started.”