Watchdog blasts surge in Aboriginal prisoners
by Bruce Campion-Smith, Toronto Star, March 8, 2013
OTTAWA— Canadian prisons are filling with aboriginal people, warns a scathing new report that urges immediate action to defuse a growing social crisis.
The correctional investigator of Canada, Howard Sapers, said in a report released Thursday that the aboriginal population in prison has jumped 43 per cent in the last five years.
Today, aboriginal people make up 4 per cent of the Canadian population, yet comprise 23 per cent of the prisoners — more than 3,400 in all — in federal corrections institutions. And he found that aboriginal offenders are more likely to serve more of their sentence behind bars, be held in segregation or with maximum security populations and be disproportionately prone to self-injury while in prison.
“If I was releasing a report card on federal aboriginal corrections efforts today, it would be filled with failing grades,” Sapers told a news conference.
Alberta Regional Chief Cameron Alexis, of the Assembly of First Nations, said “concrete” action is needed now on a problem that has been unfolding for many years. He said the danger is that a generation of aboriginal Canadians will be lost in Canada’s prison systems.
“I think everyone should be concerned,” Alexis said.
“A lot of our young people, sadly they learn things in corrections and penal systems and they come home with some of these things that are not conducive to the First Nations communities,” he said.
Liberal and NDP MPs pointed the finger at the Conservative government, saying the trend has gotten worse since the Tories took office in 2006.
“What we find in this report is a shocking indictment of how this government has failed aboriginal Canadians,” said NDP MP Randall Garrison, adding that poor social and economics conditions are fuelling a crisis in First Nations’ communities.
But the findings got a cool response from the government. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it’s the courts that are responsible for putting people behind bars.
“Prisoners are individuals who are found guilty of crimes by independent courts,” Harper told the Commons.
It was apparent on Thursday that the government wanted to frame the issue as a justice concern rather than one about the inmates. That was clear as Justice Minister Rob Nicholson addressed opposition questions on the topic rather than Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, who has responsibility for the Correctional Service of Canada.
Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia said the Tories were treating the issue like a “hot potato” passing from one minister to another.
“That’s not a very responsible approach . . . the major increase in incarcerated aboriginals has been under this government,” Scarpaleggia said, adding the onus is on the Tories to respond in a “meaningful way.”
Still, the report marks a challenge for Harper’s government, which earlier in the year had been confronted with protests in the streets for its failure to act on First Nations priorities.
“By any reasonable measure . . . the overrepresentation of aboriginal people in federal corrections and the lack of progress to improve the disparity in correctional outcomes continue to cloud Canada’s domestic human rights record,” Sapers said.
The findings mirror a Star analysis of Ontario jail data, which revealed that black and aboriginal people are overrepresented in youth and adult jails.
In Ontario, aboriginal boys aged12 to 17 make up 2.9 per cent of the young male population. But in the province’s youth facilities they make up nearly15 per cent of young male admissions.
Sapers took the rare step of issuing a special report to draw attention to problems at the federal level and warned a “critical situation will get worse” unless the Conservative government takes action now.
Sapers said the rehabilitation and reintegration of aboriginal inmates must become a “significant priority” for the Correctional Service of Canada.
“Despite years of efforts, things are not getting better,” he said.
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ReplyDeleteThis article is dated 2013. It's now 2015 and have things gotten better? A resounding "NO". Harper would rather jail as many people as possible to justify building bigger and better super jails, rather than ask why the majority of people are in jail in the first place. It's social justice. When people don't have jobs whereby they can buy decent food, health issues develop because they can't afford prescribed medication, mental health is at risk, school dropouts increase, increases in families in stress, and so on. People will do desperate things just to survive.
ReplyDeleteThis federal government of Harper and his cutback cronies don't care about the little, the people at the bottom of the ladder. They would save the tax payer billions if they increased the corporate tax slightly while increasing spending on social support systems (affordable housing, for instance) and creating real jobs the cost to society would be reduced - reduction in crime, hospital visits decline, mental health improves. We wouldn't need need more and bigger jails and hospitals. There is plenty of proof available to back up these comments. We all know it but Harper just doesn't care.