Overrepresentation of Indigenous People in The Canadian Justice System Essay Example

The rise of the overrepresentation of indigenous people in Canada is outrageous. Indigenous people makeup four percent of the population but account for more than one-quarter of those in the federal correctional population (Government of Canada, Department of Justice, 2019). It is not just indigenous adults but also indigenous youth that make this percentile so big. This suggests that indigenous people are six to seven times more likely to get imprisoned than non-indigenous people (Zinger, I. 2020). This is a huge issue for the Canadian justice system because if we don’t make a change in how we treat and look at indigenous people in the justice system it will soon become a critical issue for Canada’s Justice System. The government needs to wake up and see that this is a crisis and not just another issue that they can forget about.  In this paper, I will be examining why there is an overrepresentation of indigenous people in the Canadian Justice System, what is the Canadian government doing to fix this issue, and how I think this issue could be resolved & Fixed.

Indigenous people are over-represented in the criminal justice system, both victimized and incarcerated. (Monchalin, L. 2017).  This development is not new to us as a country (Monchalin, L. 2017). “We must acknowledge, consequently, that a large portion of the over-representation of Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system is due to systemic issues of racism and discrimination and not because actual crimes have been committed” as said in Monchalin, L. (2017). The Colonial Problem: An Indigenous Perspective on Crime and Injustice in Canada. (p.143). I believe this is true. Crime happens, but racism and discrimination do not appear out of the blue like this.  It isn’t just systemic issues of racism and discrimination it is also cultural bias against Indigenous people in the justice system. (Monchalin, L. 2017). There’s multigenerational trauma behind this culture like the removal of language, land, and culture through legislation and residential schools (Monchalin, L .2017). This paints a clear picture of why indigenous people are both victimized and incarcerated. They had to find some way of coping with their mental health rather than through culture but with crime and drug addiction. For example, Pauktuutit Inuit women of Canada outlined a cycle of abuse; that could be traced back to two root causes. (Monchalin, L. 2017). First is loss of culture and tradition and second is a loss of control over an individual and collective destiny. (Monchalin, L. 2017). This led to psychological traumas, the breakdown of families, alcohol and drug addiction and increased feeling of powerlessness, thus creating a cycle of abuse, which causes individuals to be abused or be the abuser. (Monchalin, L. 2017). An elder from the Inuk said from Monchalin, L. (2017). The Colonial Problem: An Indigenous Perspective on Crime and Injustice in Canada. (p.172).  “it’s all about your upbringing. If a child was abused at very early age, sexually or physically, then that’s all they know and they will continue to abuse. And its up to the community to stop that abuse with education and awareness. The root causes come from shame, guilt and what you’ve learned from a young age”. As we see throughout this example is that abusing children and taking away a person culture and tradition cause addiction and family breakdown through generational trauma that is held on to and passed through generation to generation. We need to understand this is a problem and understand that the overrepresentation of indigenous people in the Canadian Justice System is a huge issue and requires more attention not by just throwing money at it and let it fix itself.

So, what is the Canadian government doing to fix these issues stated above? The Canadian government, specifically Ottawa has proposals to support projects that would address bias and other barriers faced by Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system with a total of $10 million over 4 years. (Mena Report, 2021). This funding is also a larger investment proposed in the 2020 Fall Economic Statement to help introduce a new way of judging indigenous people through Gladue Principles. (Mena Report, 2021). This is a huge breakthrough, as this helps all the barriers faced by Indigenous offenders. With the money over the 4 year, programs like  Kanien’kehá:ka First Nations art therapist, creating art murals on the identity development, wellness and pro-social interaction for 32 indigenous male participants within a Canadian federal correctional institution. (Whyte, M. K. 2020). Can happened.  If we get more programs like this, we could see a change in the overrepresentation of Indigenous offenders in the Canadian justice system. Last of all, The Canadian government has also created a new National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30th which recognises the trauma behind survivors and victims of residential schools. I think this is in the right direction but, now it is a waiting game for these programs to start up and help these issues. How long is that going to take? It can take months to years to a decade to fix the issue at hand. Take for example the opioid crisis, the Canadian government has put time and money into it, and it is still an ongoing problem for Canada and the world. So, it is hard to say when this problem will be fixed and or resolved. We will just have to wait and see if these initiatives help the problem.

My opinion on how we should deal with over-represented of Indigenous  people  is to go ask the Indigenous population and ask how they think we could solve this issue within the criminal justice system. In my opinion, this would be the best way of acting on this problem, because who knows better than the indigenous population themself.  The indigenous population has been talking about this issue and bringing up ways to fix it and recognize the issue at hand multiple times, but the Canadian government is not listing to them. For example, recently the Canadian Government added National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30th. As I stated in my last paragraph. On that day The Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decided to travel for a family vacation to Tofino, B.C. Which as an elder said from R, Maloney. & A, Burke. Oct 01, 2021 “His words don’t match his action” .  said Evelyn korkmaz who is a survivor of St. Anne’s residential school in fort Albany.”  I agree, you create a new day for remembering what happened to the Indigenous community and then you go on holiday. That just show that you do not care about what happened to the indigenous people. And that why the indigenous population think that the Canadian government isn’t doing anything to help recovering from this issue, The Canadian government never seems to listen to them and discuss the issue at hand. First nations community have given Justin Trudeau many invite to their gathers and powwows. In the article R, Maloney, & A, Burke. (Oct 01, 2021) Phillip the president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs staid “The prime minister had been invited twice by the chief of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Nation to attend a commemoration ceremony Thursday” Adding a holiday/ reconciliation day doesn’t mean go on vacation, it mean honor the children’s and victims of residential school and those have gone missing from residential. It is the first step of recovering this sad history and helping those that are grieving and trying to cope with mental health with what the Canadian government has done to their communities. IAcknowledging the issue is the first step of changing and addressing an issue. That is why I suggest that the Canadian government goes and talk to elders, the young, and the middle age population of indigenous and ask them how we can help and what do you suggest we do. 

All things considered; the Canadian government is moving in the right direction on acting on this issue around the overrepresentation of indigenous people in the Canadian Justice System by creating reconciliation days and funding for program to address and help with overrepresentation of indigenous people.  We are still in this crisis, and we need to reach out to the ones in the system and out of the system because they are the ones that will make the difference in this issue and help make change and speak about why this is happening.

Finally, the overrepresentation of indigenous people in the Canadian justice system will never be resolved if the government does not take action and we as a society don’t hold the government to their word on fixing this issue.  These are the first steps of making a change. Change is what we need to resolve & fix overrepresentation of indigenous people in the Canadian criminal justice system.