OTTAWA – The ratio of Aboriginal Canadians in prison is growing and they are falling behind their non-Aboriginal peers, even 20 years after Ottawa passed laws meant to reverse the trends, according to a landmark report by Canada’s correctional investigator.
“The overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in federal corrections and the lack of progress to improve the disparity in correctional outcomes continues to cloud Canada’s domestic human rights record,” said Canada’s Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers.
The 3,400 Aboriginal people in custody now make up 23 per cent of the federal inmate population, despite representing just four per cent of the Canadian population. The rate of Aboriginal people in jail has jumped by 56 per cent in the last decade.
Sapers’ special report tabled in the House of Commons on Thursday found Aboriginal inmates are in custody longer, are more likely to be in high-security units, are disproportionately involved in use of force and self-injury incidents and are more likely to return to prison for breaking parole.
The investigator has only filed a special report once before in 1994 on incarcerated women, after an all-male emergency response team strip-searched female inmates, an incident that was later aired on national television. It triggered the Arbour commission and led to a revamp of the women’s prison system.
While Sapers acknowledged history, socioeconomic status and demographics play a role in the numbers, he also pointed to the government’s failure to implement 20-year-old laws that allow Aboriginal offenders to be held in healing lodges and establish a larger role for their communities in rehabilitation.
“If I was releasing a report card on federal Aboriginal corrections efforts today, it would be filled with failing grades,” Sapers said.
He found there are only 68 healing lodge beds, none of which are in British Columbia, Ontario, Atlantic Canada or the North. The beds that are run by Aboriginal communities are often underfunded, according to the report.
Sapers also found provisions allowing Aboriginal communities to get involved in the release are underutilized, with only 12 CSC staff members working to facilitate the process. The number of inmates released under such conditions has dropped by 50 per cent, according to the report.
“There is effort but the effort is just unequal to the challenge and unequal to the need,” Sapers said.
It’s not just inmates that are relying on those efforts, according to long-time inmate advocate Catherine Latimer.
“If people don’t get the supports that they need while they are in prison, they are going to come back out into the communities and may well end up doing no better than they did when they went into prisons,” said Latimer, the executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada.
The NDP called the report a “shocking indictment” and urged the Conservative government to change course.
“The government must devote additional resources to this crisis in the treatment of Aboriginal Canadians and in particular to achieving better outcomes in our correctional system,” said NDP public safety critic Randall Garrison.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the courts are responsible for determining guilt or innocence.
“The government has certainly taken a balanced approach on this and invested in crime prevention programs over the last seven years,” he said in question period on Thursday.
The Conservative government has not acknowledged the recommendations in Sapers’ report, which includes a deputy commissioner for Aboriginal corrections, the establishment of more healing lodges, staff training, inclusion of Aboriginal elders in programs and the hiring of more community development officers.
Jane Dickson-Gilmore, who has spent her career working in Aboriginal justice, said the numbers of Aboriginal inmates won’t drop until problems are addressed at the community level.
“We are failing Aboriginal people and if we aren’t prepared to work constructively with communities we probably should be building more prisons,” said the Carleton University law professor.
Dickson-Gilmore said poverty, family breakdown, limited educational opportunities and historical factors can all help put Aboriginal people on a collision course with the law.
“If we deal with those realities in communities and make communities and families healthier and positive places to be and grow up in, we are not going to have to be nearly as attentive to reactive criminal justice policies.”
The Assembly of First Nations also pointed to the need for social and educational investments as the answer to the disproportionate incarceration rates.
“We need to work together to increase graduation rates from high school, post-secondary and training programs as the best remedies we have to keep our youth away from the justice system and out of prisons,” it said in a statement.
WATCH AT 10:30 AM EST: NDP respond to findings and recommendations of a Special Report tabled in Parliament entitled “Spirit Matters: Aboriginal People and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.”
FULL REPORT: Spirit Matters. Aboriginal People and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act
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