

November 2019
In Ontario in the mid-1990s, the Ontario government under Premier Mike Harris made an attempt to reform incarceration for youth offenders in the province and Project Turnaround was the result.
In 1997, a small youth jail was opened in Hillsdale, Ontario, taking over the facilities of Camp Hillsdale, a former adult offender agricultural work camp that had been shut-down in 1994.
Project Turnaround was Ontario’s first and only privately-run facility for young offenders, based on the boot camp model of strict, regimented discipline. The maximum security facility, now ringed with a six-metre-high fence, housed high risk offenders between the ages of 16 and 17, with a maximum capacity of 36 offenders.
Project Turnaround was owned and operated by Sally Walker, a veteran of the private prison system in Florida, on a $2.5 million operational budget. Inmates were put through a 16 hour days consisting of schooling, behavioral and life skill training that included marching, along with growing crops for other local facilities in nearby fields.
During the life of Project Turnaround, 2 inmates escaped from the facility, only to be caught three hours later.
In February 2003, a mould infestation in the buildings led to what was planned only as a temporary closure, but a change in government and a lack of desire to renew the contract that was due to expire two months later, saw the closure became permanent as of 31 January 2004.
During its brief 6-year life, Project Turnaround saw 365 young offenders go through the program, after serving sentences for a range of offences, including assault, robbery, forcible confinement, escape, weapons charges and breaking and entering.
As this was the one and only time that Ontario attempted such a correctional program, it’s unknown if given more time and some adjustments, whether Project Turnaround could have made a significant difference in the administration of the youth criminal justice system.
Today, the inmates and correctional officers are long gone, but the buildings remain, eerily silent and crumbling.
- Project Turnaround. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
- Project Turnaround. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
- Project Turnaround. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
- Project Turnaround. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
- Project Turnaround. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
- Project Turnaround. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
- Project Turnaround. Photo: Bruce Forsyth..
- Project Turnaround. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
- Project Turnaround. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
- Project Turnaround. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
- Project Turnaround. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
- Project Turnaround. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
- Project Turnaround Church. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
- Project Turnaround Church. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
Sources: https://www.muskokaregion.com/news-story/3599594-project-turnaround-is-it-working-for-young-offenders, http://jermalism.blogspot.com/2012/02/abandonment-issues-project-turnaround.html
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