Under-served and Over-represented: Native People’s Interactions with the Criminal Justice System of Canada.

Written by: Christian Jarrett

While the loss of lands, culture, and language are generally the focus of most discussion involving the issues facing native peoples around the globe, over-representation of native populations in the prison systems is a key issue that has many long-reaching affects that negatively impact native peoples everywhere. Canada, in particular, has a major issue on its hands with the over-representation of native peoples in their prison system. Even though crime rates in Canada have been steadily going down since the early 1990s, representation of native peoples in the prison system have consistently risen throughout the same time period. While native peoples make up less than five percent of Canada’s population, they currently make up over thirty percent of the population held in Canada’s prisons. Many factors play into this over-representation of native peoples in Canada’s prison system, including a lack of education and proper housing, poverty, mental illness, and deteriorating communal ties.

            Many of the main reasons behind the over-representation of native peoples in the Canadian justice system stem from the history of colonialism left behind in Canada and the injustices that came from it. During colonial times, native peoples were pushed from their lands and forced to assimilate into western culture which left them not only without their native lands, but without their language and traditions as well. “Residential schools” were established in Canada beginning in the mid-1800s and remained until the turn of the 21^st century. These residential schools were established with the goal of removing native children from their families and tribes and placing them in a boarding school that would assimilate them into the western world. This removal of children from their communities meant that entire generations lost the language and traditions of their ancestors, leaving them unsure of whether they belonged in the western world that they had been forced to learn, or return to a tribe that was now unfamiliar to them. With this loss of communal and familial ties, many of these people began to try to adjust to their new world, many times ending up in trouble and being placed behind bars.

            Of the issues listed previously that contribute to the over-representation of native people in Canada’s criminal justice system, many stem from poverty. In his article Aboriginal Peoples and the Criminal Justice System, Jonathan Rudin explains that it is groups that fall at the bottom of the socio-economic latter that find themselves over-represented in prison populations and “ It is not reforms to the criminal justice system that lead to this development, rather it is economic improvements among the group itself” (Rudin 25). What the author means by this is that with poverty come other issues that lead to incarceration including unstable housing, lack of access to health care, theft of goods for survival and a breakdown in family dynamics. It is most often the activities of the poor that are criminalized, and without a lift out of these desperate economic conditions, upward mobility that brings these native peoples out of the arms of the criminal justice system is nearly impossible.

            Another issue that contributes heavily to the over-representation of native peoples in prisons in Canada is the systematic discrimination by police officers and unequal treatment within the court system. Some of these issues faced by the native peoples of Canada are very similar to those faced by minority populations in their interactions with police in the United States. While there is not concrete evidence to confirm this belief, it is widely thought that native peoples in Canada are disproportionately targeted by police officers in their communities. After entering the criminal justice system, native peoples also face unfair treatment in the court systems. Many native peoples are denied bail due to an inability to pay which can be traced back to the ramifications associated with poverty. Even after their trial native peoples face issues that are not faced by non-native inmates. In a report concerning the overwhelming over-representation of native peoples in the Canadian prison system, Correctional Investigator of Canada Dr. Ivan Zinger explains “that Indigenous inmates are disproportionately classified and placed in maximum security institutions, over-represented in use of force and self-injurious incidents, and historically, were more likely to be placed and held longer in segregation (solitary confinement) units.  Compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts, Indigenous offenders serve a higher proportion of their sentence behind bars before granted parole” (Zinger 2020). This increase in isolation and length of prison sentences not only keeps the person in question in prison for longer, but also raises the likelihood that this person will reoffend in the future.

            While crime rates continue to decline, rates of indigenous people in the prisons of Canada 

continue to increase year after year. Many underlying causes can be attributed to the disproportionate 

representation of native peoples in Canada’s prison population including socio-economic 

marginalization, discrimination by police and court systems, and the lasting affects of colonialism on 

a vulnerable community. In order to address the issue of the over-representation of native peoples in 

the Canadian criminal justice system, action needs to taken to combat the issues that lead to 

incarceration including the raising of native peoples out of poverty, focus on communal ties in native 

groups, and fair treatment of native peoples within the court system. 




Sources

Department of Justice. “JustFacts.” Indigenous Overrepresentation in the Criminal Justice System, 14 Feb. 2018, www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/jf-pf/2017/jan02.html.

Public Safety Canada. “Indigenous People in Federal Custody Surpasses 30% Correctional Investigator Issues Statement and Challenge.” Canada.ca, Government of Canada, 21 Jan. 2020, www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2020/01/indigenous-people-in-federal-custody-surpasses-30-correctional-investigator-issues-statement-and-challenge.html.

Macdonald, Nancy. “Canada's Prisons Are the 'New Residential Schools'.” Macleans.ca, 22 Feb. 2016, www.macleans.ca/news/canada/canadas-prisons-are-the-new-residential-schools/.

Rudin, Jonathan. Aboriginal Peoples and the Criminal Justice System. www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/inquiries/ipperwash/policy_part/research/pdf/Rudin.pdf.

Wilkinson, Tom. “Picture of a Prison Block.” Architectural Review, https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/typology/typology-prison/10031354.article.