No community in Canada comes into conflict with criminal justice system officials more disproportionately than Aboriginals (Dickson-Gilmore, 2011, p.77). Indeed, Aboriginal Canadians are often subject to both overt and unintended discrimination from Canadian law enforcement due in large part to institutionalized reputations as chronic substance abusers who are incapable of reform (Dickson-Gilmore, 2011, p.77-78). One of the more startling contemporary examples of this is the case of Frank Paul; a Mi’kmaq Canadian who was left to die in a Vancouver alley by officers of the Vancouver Police Department after being denied refuge in a police “drunk tank”. Not surprisingly, this event garnered significant controversy and public outcry amongst Canada’s Aboriginal population who have long been subject to over-policing and persistent overrepresentation as offenders in the Canadian criminal justice system (Jiwani & Dickson-Gilmore, 2011, p.43 & 81).
Background
Paul was arrested on December 6, 1998 for public intoxication (Davies, 2011). After being brought to the VPD detachment, Paul was refused entry into detox holding cell by Sgt. Russell Sanderson and was instead ordered to be released. Subsequently, Paul was left in an alley in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside by Cst. David Instant where Paul eventually succumbed to hypothermia. A criminal investigation was conducted into the actions of the two police officers and it was ruled that they not be held criminally responsible (Davies, 2009). The resulting backlash from Canada’s Aboriginal community served as an impetus to analyze the events surrounding Paul’s death with greater scrutiny.
The Inquiry
At the behest of Solicitor General John Les, an inquiry was launched in February o...
... middle of paper ...
...between Aboriginals and Canadian criminal justice.
References
Davies, W.H. (2009). Alone and cold: The Davies commission. Inquiry into the Death of Frank
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Davies, W.H. (2011). Alone and cold: The Davies commission. Inquiry into the Response of the
Criminal Justice Branch. Final Report. Retrieved from:
http://lailayuile.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/daviescommission-finalreport-june-16- 2011.pdf
Dickson-Gilmore, J. (2011). Diversity, Crime and Justice in Canada. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford
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Jiwani, Y. (2011). Diversity, Crime and Justice in Canada. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford
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LaPrairie, C. (1995). Community justice or just communities? Aboriginal communities in search of justice. Canadian Journal of Criminology. 37 (4), 521-535.
The system in place is completely unsuitable and unhelpful for Native people and it shows just how indifferent Canada is to First Nations peoples’ well-being. Zimmerman explains in his article “Outcomes” that it is a well-known fact that Aboriginal people are overrepresented in the prison system (1992). There are so many reasons why this is so, and the majority of those reasons are because of the terrible way that Canada has interacted with them. They are isolated in their reserves, they are haunted by their residential school experiences, leading to alcoholism, domestic violence and neglect, and they face discrimination and a lack of social support from the government. Once an Aboriginal person finds themselves in the clutches of the prison system, the indifference begins. Canada’s criminal justice system is indifferent to an Aboriginal person’s cultural, spiritual, and individual needs that separate them from the average convicted person (Zimmerman, 1992). The criminal justice system ignores the unique idea of justice and restoration that First Nations peoples have, making it extremely irrelevant and unhelpful for them. First Nations peoples have linguistic and cultural barriers and a lack of counsel and understanding of the criminal processes and, therefore, have misguided rulings and inaccurate proceedings. Canada has not provided the cultural training and
The Aboriginal Legal Services was an Aboriginal organisation generated by these activists to defend Black People’s rights and of families who passed away in custody. Across the country there have been many alarming deaths in prison and police custody which caused a real distress in the early 1980s amongst the Aboriginal community. During an investigation conducted by the RCIADIC nearly 99 deaths occurred in police custody in one average year. The difficult interaction between CJS and Aboriginal’s into Aboriginal Deaths in custody according to the Royal Commission has had an essential impact of
In the article “Point: Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement is Unjust”, Adele Cassola determines that racial profiling is an extensive problem in policing across Canada. She identifies that racial profiling is based on stereotypes of race, ethnicity, and cultural background with African-Canadians, Arab-Canadians, and Aboriginal Canadians being targeted most frequently. Racial profiling is not unique to law enforcement and immigration, Cassola asserts, “it is a wide spread problem within other institutions and establishments as well” (2009). She discovered a survey that showed Toronto's African-Canadian secondary school students were stopped four times more frequently and searched six times more frequently than their non-black classmates. In an article from the Toronto Star newspaper in 2002, Cassola notes that African-Canadians were subject...
trial of two men for the 1971 murder of Helen Betty Osborne in The Pas Manitoba.
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Comack, E. (2012). Racialized policing: Aboriginal people's encounters with the police. Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.
Griffiths, C. T. (2007). Canadian Criminal Justice: A Primer (3rd Edition ed.). Toronto: Thomson Nelson.
Neylan (2013) suggests that the Aboriginal women of Vancouver have perhaps experienced a similar and lingering attitude to those of the colonists. As well, it seems the Canadian justice system has also retained some of the same cruel and biased ideologies as its earlier colonialists. Neylan identifies a parallel here, explaining both colonists and the current justice system treat natives in a demeaning manner, disregarding the value of human life because of an indigenous lab...
Fleras, Augie. “Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: Repairing the Relationship.” Chapter 7 of Unequal Relations: An Introduction to Race, Ethnic and Aboriginal Dynamics in Canada. 6th ed. Toronto: Pearson, 2010. 162-210. Print.
Criminalization is a term with many connections to smaller terms such as racialization, discrimination, marginalization, and oppression. This term is also connected to smaller terms as well as factors such as social location, age, race, sexuality, and religion. Overtime, this term has evolved into a concept encompassing many different social categories and inflated by many micro-aggressions controlled by normativity and the status quo. It is through a critical perspective and an anti-oppressive lens that I will discuss the evolution of racialization and criminalization in connection to minorities as well as its connection to the prison system and how it relates to crime and violence in Canadian society.
The symbol of the Canadian judicial system is the balanced scales of justice. When a wrongful act is committed, the scales of justice are greatly misplaced and require a solution to counterbalance the crime and restore balance. Additionally, the scales represent the idea that law should be viewed objectively and the determination of innocence should be made without bias. The Canadian criminal justice system encapsulates the idea of the scale of justice, to control crime and impose penalties on those who violate the law. One of the most important aspects of this system is that an individual charged with a criminal offence is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The current system has two prevailing methods involved in the process of dealing with crime: Retributive and restorative justice. This paper will analyze aspects of retributive justice and restorative justice, with reference to their respective philosophies, for the purpose of finding which is more effective at achieving justice and maintaining balance.
Welsh, B., & Irving, M. (2005). Crime and punishment in Canada, 1981-1999. Crime and Justice, 33, 247-294. Retrieved from http://library.mtroyal.ca:2063/stable/3488337?&Search=yes&searchText=canada&searchText=crime&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dcrime%2Bin%2Bcanada%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=18&ttl=33894&returnArticleService=showFullText
In the video “Aboriginal Peoples -- It's time”, the main topic of the video is advocating for equity and justice for the aboriginal people. Aboriginal people is a collective name for the original peoples of North America and their descendants. The Canadian constitution recognizes three groups of Aboriginal peoples: Indians (commonly referred to as First Nations), Métis and Inuit. These are three distinct peoples with unique histories, languages, cultural practices and spiritual beliefs. More than 1.4 million people in Canada identify themselves as an Aboriginal person, according to the 2011
Flame into Being: The Life and Work of D. H. Lawrence (Heinemann, London 1985) Anthony Burgess, p 205