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A majority of the 25,000 people held in Canada’s overcrowded provincial and territorial jails are legally innocent and victims of a malfunctioning, risk-averse bail system, according to a damning new study by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

“Canadians spend over $850 million (annually) on pre-trial detention, even though the majority of people who are jailed upon arrest are facing non-violent, minor charges,” said Abby Deshman, CCLA program director and co-author of the report Set up to Fail: Bail and the Revolving Door of Pre-Trial Detention.

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“The cost — personal, societal and financial — of heading down this path is overwhelming,” she added.

The routine incarceration of people while they await a bail hearing or trial has increased as Canada’s crime rate — especially violent crime — had steadily decreased, notes the report.

Violent crime is at its lowest rate since 1987 and almost 80 per cent of crime reported to police services across Canada is relatively petty and non-violent, it says.