Is there a double standard in Canada's prison system? According to a recent report by the Office of the Correctional Investigator, the answer is an unqualified yes.
Howard Sapers, Canada's correctional investigator called the treatment of aboriginal people by the Correctional System of Canada (CSC) "systemic discrimination."
Aboriginal people make up only four per cent of the country's population, but account for 23 per cent of federal prison inmates.
Furthermore, he wrote, the problem has been increasing at an alarming rate since 2001/2002 with a 40 per cent increase in the past decade alone.
The Conservatives, of course, barely paid lip service to the report. A spokesperson for Vic Toews, public safety minister, responded to criticism of the government's inaction by saying "the only identifiable group that our tough on crime agenda targets are criminals."
That may be so, officially, but it does not account for the fact that correctional outcomes for aboriginal "criminals" are far worse than for their non-aboriginal counterparts. They get longer sentences, spend more time in segregation and maximum security, are less likely to be paroled and if they do get parole are more likely to have it revoked for minor breaches.
Appearing on CBC's Power and Politics, former public safety minister Stockwell Day, suggested aboriginal people need to start taking personal responsibility for their behaviour. I don't often see eye-to-eye with Mr. Day, but he has a point. He illustrated this point by describing conditions at two different reserves within his former B.C. riding, one of which had major crime problems and one with relatively little.
He kind of glossed over the fact, however, that reserves that do not have major crime problems are also the ones that have strong economic and educational programs.
To be fair, Day did acknowledge that overcoming the victim mentality in aboriginal communities is only part of the solution. We are not going to get there without a real commitment to improving the economic and educational prospects for First Nations. Poverty is the single most common underlying cause of crime.
And while taking personal responsibility is a well-established principle of rehabilitation, Sapers points out aboriginal men and women in federal penitentiaries are getting uneven access to those rehabilitative services.
He made several recommendations to address the issues in the CSC:
Appoint a deputy commissioner for aboriginal corrections;
Develop a long-term strategy to increase opportunities for the care and custody of aboriginal offenders by aboriginal communities, and re-allocate adequate funds for these purposes;
Create more community-based healing lodges and permanent funding for them, equal to CSC facilities;
Train CSC staff on an ongoing basis to ensure adequate understanding of aboriginal people, culture and traditions;
Develop new and enhanced measures to ensure aboriginal leadership and elders are equal partners in the delivery of community release and re-integration programs and services;
Immediately hire more aboriginal community development officers; and
Improve and streamline the process around accepting and monitoring released offenders into aboriginal communities.
These seem like very reasonable measures. If we can't accomplish these few simple things, will we ever get serious about addressing our national disgrace?
