(OTTAWA) Canada has made little progress in addressing the overrepresentation of black and indigenous people in prisons, with some facing even worse conditions than a decade ago, according to a new report.
Posted at 5:01 p.m.
The nation’s top prison watchdog says systemic concerns and barriers, including discrimination, stereotyping, racial bias and labeling, are “as pervasive and persistent as ever”.
Correctional Investigator Ivan Zinger said at a press conference Tuesday that he was disappointed that the “extraordinarily well-funded” agency in charge of Canadian prisons had not acknowledged its role in reversing the crisis of over-representation.
“For an organization that spends so much money to have poor correctional outcomes, especially for Indigenous prisoners as well as Black prisoners, this is a real disgrace and something Canadians should be concerned about,” he said. -he declares.
The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) employs about 1.2 staff members for every incarcerated person and spends nearly $109,000 a year per prisoner, Zinger pointed out, putting it among the best-funded agencies in the world. . “These are phenomenal numbers,” he said.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, who oversees the service, said he welcomed the “meticulous” report and that “a lot of work” is being done to resolve the issues.
“I look forward to working closely with CSC to ensure that progress is made on the issues raised in this report to improve our federal correctional system,” he said. specified in a written statement.
“All offenders should be able to serve their sentence with dignity and without fear, in an environment that is conducive to rehabilitation and that prepares them to reintegrate into Canadian society,” he added.
Mr. Zinger’s latest annual report includes a survey of the experience of black prisoners and the first part of a survey of Indigenous peoples in the prison system. Both are updates to historical reports from 2013, and no major improvement has been seen since.
prejudice against black people
Black prisoners make up 9.2% of the total prison population, although they make up only about 3.5% of the entire Canadian population, the report said. More than a third of them are young black men between the ages of 18 and 30.
The survey found that black prisoners were more likely to be over-represented in maximum-security institutions, involved in “incidents involving the use of force”, involuntarily transferred, placed in solitary confinement, institutionally charged and assessed as “high risk” and “less motivated”.
Black prisoners recounted their experiences of “explicit discrimination, stereotyping, prejudice and differential treatment”, the report reads, and the consistent use of “racist language”, in addition to being “ignored and looked down upon by ‘in a way that increases their feelings of marginalization, exclusion and isolation’.
They also told investigators that they were more likely to be labeled as a “gang member” or treated as such.
Mr Zinger slammed the corrections service for a “disappointing” response to his recommendations, and for consistently failing to include contributions and support from black community groups. He said the agency promised more sensitivity training, studies and policy reviews in return.
“The service’s stated commitment to creating ‘a more inclusive, diverse, and equitable anti-racism organization’ sounds great on paper,” he told reporters.
“But top-down, diversity, inclusion and anti-racism systems are not likely to succeed in eradicating the discriminatory and unfair treatment that black people consistently reported to us during this survey,” he said. added.
Overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples
The overrepresentation of Indigenous people in prison continues to worsen, with Indigenous people now representing 32% of the prison population and over 50% of women incarcerated.
Aboriginal people are also more likely to be subjected to the use of force by correctional officers, placed in structured intervention units, placed in maximum security and labeled as gang members.
Aboriginal inmates are more likely to self-harm and attempt suicide. Five out of six people who died by suicide last year were Indigenous, Zinger said.
“We found, again, terrible results,” he said.
Although more than 30 recommendations have been made to the Correctional Service over the years on how to address the problem, including funding healing lodges and allowing supervision of Aboriginal offenders in their own communities, there “is no not had much of a follow-up to many of them,” Mr. Zinger pointed out.
Problematic isolation
Zinger’s report includes a third investigation into restrictive forms of confinement in men’s maximum-security penitentiaries.
He found that federal legislation to replace the old “administrative segregation” regime with “structured intervention units” has failed to prevent the creation and extension of segregation-like conditions.
A wide range of practices similar to solitary confinement are still in use, including “voluntary limited association units”, which are meant to be designed for “inmates who do not want to integrate into the general prison population and who do not meet the criteria for placement in administrative segregation,” the report states.
These “exist outside the law,” the report says, and Mr. Zinger calls on the correctional service to develop a national policy dealing with such systems that takes into account the rights, freedoms and privileges of inmates.
The Office of the Correctional Investigator made 18 recommendations to the federal government as a whole, eight of which focused on improving the lives of black prisoners.
Recommendations include the development of a national strategy that specifically addresses “the unique lived experiences and barriers faced by black people serving federal sentences” and a renewed call for the appointment of a new deputy commissioner focused exclusively on aboriginal corrections.
Among other things, Zinger is also urging the government to ban the use of dry cells beyond 72 hours, update CSC’s national drug strategy, change a ‘discriminatory’ system of levels for women in in maximum security units and adding basic safety equipment such as seat belts to inmates in escort vehicles.