Indigenous people have been overrepresented behind bars for decades, which activists and observers denounce. But the causes of this imbalance are multiple, and the solutions complex.
Of all Canadians serving a federal sentence — two years in prison or more — more than a quarter are aboriginal, a proportion that has been climbing for at least ten years.
The 2021 report from Correctional Service Canada (CSC) indicates that 27% of federal offenders are Indigenous, yet they represent only 5% of the population, according to the census of the same year.
“There is nothing new there, we started talking about it in the 1960s,” says Mylène Jaccoud, professor of criminology at the University of Montreal. According to this specialist in Aboriginal issues, “corrections get slapped on the knuckles every year by the Office of the Correctional Investigator because they still do not apply the principles” of culturally appropriate intervention.
In his 2021-2022 report, the Correctional Investigator of Canada, Ivan Zinger, pointed out that Indigenous people are not only more at risk of ending up incarcerated, but they are also more likely to end up in a maximum security institution.
They are involved in the majority of acts of self-harm and suicides behind bars.
The high number of Indigenous women in maximum-security institutions, where they make up half of residents, “is largely the result of systemic bias and racism, including discriminatory risk assessment tools, ineffective case management, bureaucratic delays and inertia,” the Correctional Investigator wrote.
Among other things, he criticized the Custody Rating Scale (CRS), a tool used to assess the dangerousness of an inmate, saying that it has an anti-Indigenous bias, which his office has denounced since the 1990s. “Twenty-five years later, the CSR is still used. I can’t help but ask why,” he lamented.
“The Government of Canada remains committed to taking concrete action to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system,” CSC said in an email.
In its response to the Correctional Investigator’s latest report, CSC announced that it had “established a partnership with the University of Regina, which is responsible for independently developing a brand new security classification process for Aboriginal offenders.” SCC had also highlighted its awareness-raising work. “The Foundations of Aboriginal Interventions in Correctional Settings is a new mandatory training for all non-correctional staff that focuses on Aboriginal history and unique cultural considerations. »
The office of Canada’s Public Safety Minister, Marco Mendicino, did not respond to requests from the Duty. The Parole Board of Canada declined to participate in an interview and redirected The duty to CSC.
The parallel paths
Several services exist for Indigenous people behind bars, such as Pathways, “an intensive residential healing initiative, based on the medicine wheel and led by Elders,” recalls CSC in its email.
The various levels of government fund organizations such as the Native Para-Judicial Services of Quebec (SPAQ) and the Native Friendship Centers of Quebec, which offer support to Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system.
There are also a handful of healing lodges run by CSC or Aboriginal communities, which serve as an alternative to minimum security incarceration. They offer holistic healing methods and traditional teachings.
But rare are the prisoners who obtain a place in the pavilions administered by their own, since only 389 beds are available in the country. The Waseskun Healing Center is the only pavilion in Quebec, with 15 places.
“Proportionally, few new funds have been allocated to community corrections initiatives controlled or managed by Aboriginal people” for ten years, denounces the correctional investigator.
Pierre Lainé, member of the Wendat nation and deputy director of the SPAQ, points out that “the people with whom we are currently working, that is to say our various levels of government, must recognize once and for all that we know what is good for us […]that they accept our vision, accept our path which will lead us towards rehabilitation”.
“There is still a discrepancy between the model of Western justice and Indigenous culture, which is much more focused on flexibility, respect, repair and consensus than punishment,” explains Audrey Bergeron-Bilodeau, justice and public security advisor for the Regroupement des centers d’intérieure du Québec.
Friendship Centers provide culturally safe services in urban settings, such as community legal services and restorative justice programs.
Upstream healing
However, for many stakeholders, reforming the prison system does not attack the root of the problem. It is necessary “that we have better living conditions, favorable educational conditions, that there is less and less racism”, says Mr. Lainé.
He cites a list of historical traumas that are passed down from generation to generation: “Residential schools [pour Autochtones] these include loss of territory, loss of language, loss of family members, either by displacement of people, when communities were displaced, or by death. »
These findings echo the recommendations of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, which stated that “overrepresentation will not be[it] not corrected only by the reform of the judicial system. We must address all the damage that residential schools still cause to Aboriginal families, particularly in the areas of education, language, culture and health”.
Mylène Jaccoud adds that professional training must be reformed to make students aware of Aboriginal realities, and thus “transform future police officers, future jurists, future criminologists and future social workers”.