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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 11:30 am
Time: 11:30 am
Results for minority inmates
1 results foundAuthor: Canada. Office of the Correctional Investigator Title: Spirit Matters: Aboriginal People and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act Summary: i. The Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA) makes specific reference to the unique needs and circumstances of Aboriginal Canadians in federal corrections. The Act provides for special provisions (Sections 81 and 84), which are intended to ameliorate over-representation of Aboriginal people in federal penitentiaries and address long-standing differential outcomes for Aboriginal offenders. ii. It has been 20 years since the CCRA came into force, and the Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI) believes that a systematic investigation of Sections 81 and 84 of the Act is both timely and important. This investigation aims to determine the extent to which the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) has fulfilled Parliament's intent at the time that the CCRA came into force. It examines the status and use of Section 81 and 84 provisions in federal corrections for the period ending March 2012, identifies some best practices in Aboriginal corrections and assesses the commitment by CSC to adopt principles set out in the Supreme Court of Canada's landmark decision of R. v. Gladue. The investigation concludes with key recommendations for enhancing CSC's capacity and compliance with Sections 81 and 84 of the CCRA. iii. Section 81 of the CCRA was intended to give CSC the capacity to enter into agreements with Aboriginal communities for the care and custody of offenders who would otherwise be held in a CSC facility. It was conceived to enable a degree of Aboriginal control, or at least participation in, an offender's sentence, from the point of sentencing to warrant expiry. Section 81 further allows Aboriginal communities to have a key role in delivering programs within correctional institutions and to those offenders accepted under a Section 81 agreement (Aboriginal Healing Lodges or Healing Centres). iv. The investigation found that, as of March 2012, there were only 68 Section 81 bed spaces in Canada and no Section 81 agreements in British Columbia, Ontario, and Atlantic Canada or in the North. Until September 2011, there were no Section 81 Healing Lodge spaces available for Aboriginal women. v. One of the major factors that inhibit existing Section 81 Healing Lodges from operating at full capacity and new Healing Lodges from being developed is the requirement that they limit their intake to minimum security offenders or, in rare cases, to "low risk" medium security offenders. The evolution of this policy, which was neither Parliament's intent nor CSC's original vision, is seen as a way for the Service to minimize risk and exposure. It creates a number of problems, exacerbated by the fact that only 11.3% of Aboriginal male offenders, or 337 individuals, were housed in minimum-security institutions in 2010-2011. In effect, CSC policy excludes almost 90% of incarcerated Aboriginal offenders from even being considered for transfer to a Healing Lodge. With this limitation, it is no surprise that the investigation found that Healing Lodges do not operate at full capacity. vi. In addition to the four Section 81 Healing Lodges, CSC has established four Healing Lodges operated as CSC minimum-security institutions (with the exception of the Healing Lodge for women that accepts both minimum and some medium security inmates). CSC-operated Healing Lodges can provide accommodation for up to 194 federal incarcerated offenders, which include 44 beds for Aboriginal women. vii. Section 81 Healing Lodges operate on five-year contribution agreement cycles and enjoy no sense of permanency. There is no guarantee that the agreements will be renewed. Indeed, they are subject to changes in CSC priorities and funding, including a 2001 reallocation of $11.6M earmarked for new Section 81 facilities to other requirements. viii. We found that the discrepancy in funding between Section 81 Healing Lodges and those operated by CSC is substantial. In 2009-2010, the allocation of funding to the four CSC- operated Healing Lodges totalled $21,555,037, while the amount allocated to Section 81 Healing Lodges was just $4,819,479. Chronic under-funding of Section 81 Healing Lodges means that they are unable to provide comparable CSC wages or unionized job security. As a result, many Healing Lodge staff seek employment with CSC, where salaries can be 50% higher for similar work. It is estimated that it costs approximately $34,000 to train a Healing Lodge employee to CSC requirements, but the Lodge operators receive no recognition or compensation for that expense. ix. Another factor inhibiting the success and expansion of Section 81 Healing Lodges has been community acceptance. Just as in many non-Aboriginal communities, not every Aboriginal community is willing to have offenders housed in their midst or take on the responsibility for their management. x. CSC did not originally intend to operate its Healing Lodges in competition with Section 81 facilities, but rather saw itself as providing an intermediate step that would ultimately result in the transfer of those facilities to community control under Section 81. As the investigation notes, however, negotiations to facilitate transfer of CSC Healing Lodges to First Nation control appear to have been abandoned. Most negotiations never moved beyond preliminary stages. In some Aboriginal communities, this breakdown in engagement has resulted in long-standing acrimony and mistrust directed at Canada's correctional authority. xi. The intent of Section 84 was to enhance the information provided to the Parole Board of Canada and to enable Aboriginal communities to propose conditions for offenders wanting to be released into their communities. It was not intended to be a lengthy or onerous process, yet that is exactly what it has become: cumbersome, time-consuming and misunderstood. A successful Section 84 release plan requires significant time-sensitive and co-ordinated action. As the investigation reveals, there are only 12 Aboriginal Community Development Officers across Canada responsible for bridging the interests of the offender and the community prior to release. xii. The Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Gladue (1995) and, more recently, in a March 2012 decision (R. v. Ipeelee) compelled judges to use a different method of analysis in determining a suitable sentence for Aboriginal offenders by paying particular attention to the unique circumstances of Aboriginal people and their social histories. These are commonly referred to as Gladue principles or factors. CSC has incorporated Gladue principles in its policy framework, requiring it to consider Aboriginal social history when making decisions affecting the retained rights and liberties of Aboriginal offenders. Although the Gladue decision refers to sentencing considerations, it is reasonable to conclude that Section 81 facilities would be consistent with the Supreme Court's view of providing a culturally appropriate option for federally sentenced Aboriginal people. Notwithstanding, we find that Gladue principles are not well-understood within CSC and are unevenly applied. xiii. Today, 21% of the federal inmate population claims Aboriginal ancestry. The gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal offenders continues to widen on nearly every indicator of correctional performance: - Aboriginal offenders serve disproportionately more of their sentence behind bars before first release. - Aboriginal offenders are under-represented in community supervision populations and over-represented in maximum security institutions. - Aboriginal offenders are more likely to return to prison on revocation of parole. - Aboriginal offenders are disproportionately involved in institutional security incidents, use of force interventions, segregation placements and self-injurious behaviour. xiv. The investigation found a number of barriers in CSC's implementation of Sections 81 and 84. These barriers inadvertently perpetuate conditions that further disadvantage and/or discriminate against Aboriginal offenders in federal corrections, leading to differential outcomes: 1. Restricted access to Section 81 facilities and opportunities outside CSC's Prairie and Quebec regions. 2. Under-resourcing and temporary funding arrangements for Aboriginal-controlled Healing Lodges leading to financial insecurity and lack of permanency. 3. Significant differences in salaries and working conditions between facilities owned and operated by CSC versus Section 81 arrangements. 4. Restricted eligibility criteria that effectively exclude most Aboriginal offenders from consideration of placement in a Section 81 Healing Lodge. 5. Unreasonably delayed development and implementation of specific policy supports and standards to negotiate and establish an operational framework to support robust, timely and coordinated implementation of Section 81 and 84 arrangements. 6. Limited understanding and awareness within CSC of Aboriginal peoples, cultures, spirituality and approaches to healing. 7. Limited understanding and inadequate consideration and application of Gladue factors in correctional decision-making affecting the interests of Aboriginal offenders. 8. Funding and contractual limitations imposed by CSC that impede Elders from providing quality support, guidance and ceremony and placing the Service's Continuum of Care Model for Aboriginal offenders in jeopardy. 9. Inadequate response to the urban reality and demographics of Aboriginal offenders, most of whom will not return to a traditional First Nations reserve. 10. CSC's senior management table lacks a Deputy Commissioner with focused and singular responsibility for progress in Aboriginal Corrections. The OCI concludes that CSC has not met Parliament's intent with respect to provisions set out in Sections 81 and 84 of the CCRA. CSC has not fully or sufficiently committed itself to implementing key legal provisions intended to address systemic disadvantage. xv. It is understood that CSC does not control who is sent to prison by the courts. However, 20 years after enactment of the CCRA, the CSC has failed to make the kind of systemic, policy and resource changes that are required in law to address factors within its control that would help mitigate the chronic over-representation of Aboriginal people in federal penitentiaries. Details: Ottawa: office of the Correctional Investigator, 2012. 44p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 4, 2015 at: http://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/pdf/oth-aut/oth-aut20121022-eng.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Canada URL: http://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/pdf/oth-aut/oth-aut20121022-eng.pdf Shelf Number: 135881 Keywords: Aboriginals Indigenous PeoplesMinority InmatesPrisonersPrisons |