A new report says the number of adults jailed on remand on any given day has been steadily increasing over the last decade, while the number in sentenced custody has declined.

Statistics Canada says the number of adults in remand has surpassed those in sentenced custody since 2005-06.

Remand is the temporary detention of a person awaiting trial or sentencing.

On any given day in 2009-10, the agency says an average of about 13,600 adults were in remand everywhere but Nunavut, up one per cent from the previous year.

Prisoners in remand accounted for 58 per cent of the adult custodial population, with 42 per cent in sentenced custody.

The proportions were reversed a decade earlier, at 40 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively.

The agency says two factors drove the overall increase in the adult remand population: higher numbers of annual admissions and longer periods of time spent in remand.

Annual adult admissions to remand rose 30 per cent from 1999-2000 to 2008-09. Increases in the length of time adults spent in remand were reported for all provinces and territories that provided data, except Ontario, where the median length remained unchanged.