Canada's Penitentiary Museum

Photo Credit: Miguel Saavedra

Canada’s Penitentiary Museum is located at the birthplace of the Correctional Service of Canada in Kingston, Ontario.  The Museum is housed within the former Warden’s residence of Canada’s oldest penitentiary, and will give you perspective to compare the differences in cells from 1906 to today.  The Canada’s Penitentiary Museum is an award-winning museum dedicated solely to the preservation and interpretation of the history of our federal penitentiaries.

Visiting the Museum will give you the chance to view harsh methods of punishment and restraint used at a time when the focus was on deterring rather than rehabilitating.  Visitors can wander through the seven display rooms and see photographs, restraint equipment, prison uniforms, contraband items, escape paraphernalia, antique punishment, and inmate art and hobby crafts.  In the summer months only, the museum is staffed by Volunteers.  Many of them are retired Correctional officers whose first-hand experiences date back to 1959.