'Systemic discrimination' against native prison inmates

'Aboriginal people are routinely disadvantaged once they are placed into the custody of the correctional service.' - Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers

Ottawa (18 Oct. 2006) - Canada's national ombudsman for federal prison inmates says Canada is guilty of "systemic discrimination" against aboriginal offenders.

The number of aboriginals in prison climbed 22% between 1996 and 2004, while the general population dropped 12%, Howard Sapers, the country's federal correctional investigator, said this week in his annual report to Parliament.

For women native prisoners, the numbers were even more dramatic, rising 74% over the same period. Among all prisoners, aboriginals now account for 18.5% of federal inmates, but only 2.7% of the Canadian population.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, the minister responsible for the prison system, was quick to criticize the report after it was made public.

''I visited personally a number of federal institutions and have spent time with aboriginals themselves individually and in groups in the institutions,'' he told MPs in the Commons. ''I am confident in the professionalism of the people who work for Corrections Canada.''

Stockwell Day

Day did not comment directly on many of the most damning findings in the report.

Sapers said the Correctional Service of Canada often overestimates the risk posed by native prisoners, and too often sends them to maximum-security institutions when lower security-level prisons would do.

Natives are also more likely to spend time in solitary confinement and less likely to be considered for early parole, he added.

"The general picture is one of institutionalized discrimination. That is, aboriginal people are routinely disadvantaged once they are placed into the custody of the correctional service."

Sapers urged prison officials to adopt a new classification process to reduce the number of aboriginals in maximum security. He also called for greater use of unescorted temporary absences and for work release programs to ease native offenders back into society.

Additional measures should be adopted to encourage earlier release on full parole, he added.

Sapers also recommended hiring more aboriginals within the prison service, and said aboriginal communities should be more involved in post-release support programs.

Report welcomed

Native groups welcomed the report.

Angus Toulouse, Ontario regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations, said alternatives to "the continued warehousing" of natives are urgently required.

Beverley Jacobs, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, also called for action. "'We've had enough task force reports, internal reviews national strategies . . . . there has been no significant progress." NUPGE