What Are The Criticisms Of The Criminal Justice System

Throughout Canada’s journalism industry, there have been many criticisms in regards to Canada’s Criminal Justice System and its Prisons. One of these criticisms is whether or not there is secret racial discrimination behind the imprisonment of minorities in Canada. In a National Post article by Jessica Barrett: “Covert Racism behind Increased numbers of Aboriginals and other visible minorities in Prisons, watchdog says”, she incessantly quotes Canada’s former correctional investigator, Howard Sapers (The Watchdog) and his belief on the secret racial prejudices within the Criminal Justice System. Usually this type of claim would typically be agreed with; however, this piece lacks solid facts and other people’s point of views which essentially

The Canadian justice system does need improvements; however, the way citizens are sentenced and punished is all systematic. In the article, Sapers questions the justice system’s commitment to inclusion and social justice. He articulates how “Canada’s prison system must address this cultural shift by introducing more culturally relevant programs, increasing staff who speak languages other than English and French, and recommended ethnicity liaison officers be placed in Canadian institutions” (Barrett, 4). These programs are desired; conversely, it needs to be noted that the intention of prison is to strip a person from their deviant self and rehabilitate them into an individual who is less likely to deviate in society. For this reason, inserting these programs in detention centres will in fact defeat the objective of prison. By accommodating these prisoners; they will never learn anything from their faults, and they will depend on prison to always support them. This being said, prisoners should not be keen on the idea of being in prison and do everything possible to ensure they never revert back, once they served their sentence. Another key point is if these programs were implemented to make confinement a more enjoyable place, prisoners would not desire to leave and will deviate more to have a longer sentence. This will result in dissipating more Canadian tax money because there will be a higher amount of people in confinement. Instead, these programs could be employed into Canadian society for people who in fact need it. Prisoners of all races gave up their freedom in Canada as soon as they executed a crime and should not be