How The Canadian Justice System Continues To Oppress Indigenous People
By: Renee Dourado
Tags: Indigenous, Police Brutality

Credit: Stephen Macgillivray/ The Canadian Press

Introduction

Canadians often pride themselves on being one of the most progressive countries. From an outsider’s perspective, Canada may seem like the most fair and free country in the world. However, behind the façade of a utopia, Canada is far from a perfect country.

To put it simply, Canadian law is color coded. Certain legislation seems to apply more to certain races than others. Yet, our country seems to be ignoring this fact and continuing to let systematic racism occur. To this day, minorities, such as the indigenous people of Canada, are much more likely to be arrested and/or incarcerated than white people. Though the Canadian government has apologized for the atrocities they have committed against the people native to this land, indigenous people are still experiencing the effects of colonization. Canada needs to do more than say they are sorry for their past. They need to repent and change. The following article will take an in-depth look on how Canada’s past and present attitude towards our country’s natives has led to the mass incarceration of Indigenous people.

The Mass Incarceration of Minority Groups in Canada

In our country, there has been a disparity in prison populations among certain races. Indigenous Canadians make up around 30% of the inmates in correctional facilities, despite only making up five percent of the general population. Contrary to the belief of some perhaps racist individuals, this is not because the indigenous are inherently more prone to criminal activity. So why are they being incarcerated more often?

One reason could be how the justice system treats them different from other races. The fact of the matter is that the Canadian government continues to discreetly discriminate against minority groups such as indigenous Canadians. They do this through the “justice” system. Every aspect of the criminal justice system works against indigenous people; from arrests, to bail denials and harsher sentencing. They are also more likely to be wrongly arrested by police than white people and more likely to experience police brutality than white people. Knowing this, it is apparent that Canada has never ended its mistreatment towards the natives to the land we are on. Though we have made attempts for reparation, as a country, we clearly are not doing enough.

But what about the Natives who actually did commit crimes? Well, when we look to why indigenous people are being incarcerated, they are typically related to acts that coincide with sexual abuse, violence, poverty, substance abuse and unemployment. Now, let’s look to Canada’s present and past relationship with native people to see why this is occurring.

Though there are many individuals who commit acts of sexual assault and violence for reasons that cannot be justified in any way shape or form, a few reasons why indigenous people commit these acts can be explained to some degree. It is important to note that these crimes are never justified, but we can understand why they happen so often. In the case of indigenous people, residential school syndrome can be a direct cause of these crimes. Residential School syndrome is a form of PTSD that has had lasting effects on our indigenous population. Natives were traumatized by the abuse they endured at these schools that our government forced them to attend. Their trauma gave them this mental illness that affected their lifestyle and parenting. Remember, victims of childhood abuse may turn out violent themselves due to the unhealthy relationships they developed. Natives all share this shared trauma that is the fault of the Canadian government. Ergo, it is extremely important to understand the context of why natives are incarcerated more for these types of crimes instead of stereotyping them as more violent.

Moving on, let’s look into how Canada’s present relationship with indigenous people has caused a surge in this community being arrested for crimes related to poverty, unemployment and substance abuse. When we look at poverty rates in Canada, it seems to be the territories that are hit the hardest. As you already know, the territories are predominantly populated by native people. In Nunavut, Yukon and the Northwest Territories, the unemployment rates are drastically high and a concerning amount of people are below the poverty line. When people are low income and desperate to take care of themselves and their family, it is not uncommon for them to turn to illegal activities to support themselves. This happens to be the case for a significant amount of people living on reserves. Where there is poverty, there is more likely to be theft and the distribution as well as purchasing of illegal substances. Thus, the reason for a rise in these types of crimes has nothing to do with race and everything to so with the situation people are in.

Concluding Thoughts

To improve this issue, we must focus on making reparations. We should focus on implementing mental health programs to help indigenous people suffering with Residential School Syndrome. Another solution is to help empower indigenous youth so that they can be successful in the future. We’ll do this by offering them the resources they need to get into post-secondary education. Furthermore, providing indigenous people living on reserves with more job’s opportunities will help deter crimes related to unemployment and poverty. This is a much more effective solution than increasing policing in the territories. At the end of the day, no amount of money can pay back what our country did to these people. But we should at least try to make amends.

Sources

Correctional Service of Canada CSC Research. (2020). Retrieved 27 November 2020, from https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/research/r144-eng.shtml

‘National travesty’: report shows one third of Canada’s prisoners are Indigenous. (2020). Retrieved 27 November 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/22/one-third-canada-prisoners-indigenous-report

Broken system: Why is a quarter of Canada’s prison population Indigenous?. (2018). Retrieved 27 November 2020, from https://theconversation.com/broken-system-why-is-a-quarter-of-canadas-prison-population-indigenous-91562

LaPrairie, Carol. 2002. Aboriginal Over–Representation in the Criminal Justice System: A Tale of Nine Cities. Canadian Journal of Criminology 44/2: 181–202.

Charles Brasfield, P., & Charles Brasfield, P. (2020). Residential school syndrome | British Columbia Medical Journal. Retrieved 27 November 2020, from https://bcmj.org/articles/residential-school-syndrome#:~:text=This%20definition%20

News, A. (2019). Half of First Nations children on reserve live in poverty, new study says — APTN News. Retrieved 27 November 2020, from https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/half-of-first-nations-children-on-reserve-live-in-poverty-new-study-says/#:~:text=That%20figure%20rises%20

Stelkia, K. (2020). Police Brutality in Canada: A Symptom of Structural Racism and Colonial Violence — Yellowhead Institute. Retrieved 27 November 2020, from https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2020/07/15/police-brutality-in-canada-a-symptom-of-structural-racism-and-colonial-violence/