The former Guelph Correctional Centre is one of Canada’s largest and most intact examples of a correctional facility designed to reform rather than punish criminal behaviour.
Soon after the government purchased the 800 acre property in 1910, prisoners transferred from the Central Prison in Toronto began to arrive and erect temporary buildings – including living quarters. Within a few years, prisoners were constructing permanent structures, including the industrial buildings. Their work extended to the park-like grounds and included draining of swamps, creations of ponds and construction of rustic bridges and walls.
Construction of the prison complex started in 1915.
The prison buildings themselves were designed to segregate inmates on the basis of behaviour, as well as on their potential for committing dangerous acts.
Guelph Prison Farm
The idea of the ‘prison farm’ was based on a theory that outdoor work, especially farming, would improve the behaviour of prisoners. Reformers hoped that regular, scheduled labour would reduce the monotony of prison life, teach practical skills, instill pride and reduce opportunities for negative social interaction. Prison farms had the added benefit of reducing the overall cost of institutions to taxpayers since it produced all its own food.
At the peak of its era, inmates were employed in the abattoir, wood-working shop, woolen mill, tailor shop, laundry, and mattress factory in addition to working on the institution’s farm.
The prison was closed in 2001 by which time it had been reduced to 310 acres. Currently, the property is comprised of an 85-acre parcel containing the main complex of buildings constructed between 1911 and 1972. Currently, the property is owned by the provincial government and managed by the Ontario Realty Corporation (ORC).
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This site could house a Conestoga College campus if a new proposal gets provincial approval.
The province is looking to create three new satellite college campuses, and Conestoga College would like to build one in Guelph.
The college is looking at the old Ontario Reformatory on York Road, which was once the biggest prison in the province, as the potential new site.