‘Staggering’ disparity as Indigenous adults overrepresented in prisons by 10 times

VANCOUVER — A new report by Statistics Canada says Indigenous adults were incarcerated at a rate 10 times higher than non-Indigenous adults in six provinces, a disparity that justice advocates called staggering, and a roadblock to reconciliation.

The agency’s new measure, called the overrepresentation index, was used to make the finding for First Nations, Inuit and Métis people in British Columbia, P.E.I., Nova Scotia, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta in 2023/2024.

Indigenous legal experts and advocates were not shocked by the findings, but say it shines a light on systemic issues that persist after centuries of colonization.

“The numbers in this report are staggering, but not surprising,” Kory Wilson, chair of the BC First Nations Justice Council, said in a statement Wednesday. “Indigenous people are not inherently more criminal — we are more criminalized.”

The Statistics Canada report, released Wednesday, said Indigenous people made up 33.2 per cent of the custodial population in those provinces despite only making up 4.3 per cent of the overall adult population of those regions.

Indigenous adults were incarcerated at a rate of 89 per 10,000 population on an average day, compared with eight per 10,000 among non-Indigenous adults.

It also notes 2.6 per cent of the Indigenous adult population was incarcerated at some point during the 2023/2024 year — and that rate more than doubled to 7.3 per cent among Indigenous men aged 35 to 44.

The report said that overrepresentation was greater for women than men. It said researchers also determined that, over the five-year period between 2019 and 2024, overrepresentation of Indigenous adults in custody increased each year.

Cree lawyer Eleanore Sunchild, who is based in Saskatoon, said the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the justice system had been strained since colonization, but also pointed to other injustices that may be a factor in rates of incarceration, such as trauma from residential schools or the ’60s scoop.

“There’s been such a push toward incarceration of Indigenous people and in doing that, I don’t think that the governments realized that it was colonization that created this problem,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

She said authorities need to focus on helping people heal from generational trauma.

“It’s not going to get better until the government realizes that they have to provide real, concrete, meaningful healing to Indigenous people and give them the tools to do that,” she said, adding there also needs to be a shift in the way the justice system operates.

“In the current system, it’s about punishment. It’s about deterrence, denunciation. There’s not a lot of focus on rehabilitation, and it should be because, in my mind, rehabilitation equals reconciliation.”

Statistics Canada’s report said the overrepresentation of Indigenous people is “complex and interconnected though indisputably linked to colonialism, displacement, socioeconomic marginalization, intergenerational trauma and systemic discrimination.”

“The overrepresentation of Indigenous people in Canada’s correctional systems is a long-standing and deeply rooted issue,” the agency said.

Darryl Shackelly, CEO of the Native Court Work and Counselling Association of British Columbia, said he had been working to support Indigenous people understand and navigate the justice system for about three decades.

“We get people in the system, we help people understand what they’re there for, how to prepare for court appearances, how to understand what the appearances are,” he explained.

He too said he was unsurprised by the report’s findings.

“It’s been very consistent for all of my years in the system,” he said of the statistics cited in the report. “There are many disadvantages that Indigenous people face within the court system.”

That, he said, could include racial profiling during arrests or tougher sentences implemented by judges.

Despite that, Shackelly said there had been strides in the right direction, such as the implementation of specialized pre-sentence reports, known as Gladue reports, that provide background on Indigenous offenders. But he agreed there is still room to grow, noting culturally safe services offered by organizations like his are often underfunded.

The Statistics Canada report also found the Black population was incarcerated at a rate three times the white population in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Alberta and B.C. It said Black people accounted for about 13 per cent of the custodial population on an average day in those provinces despite making up only 3.3 per cent of the general adult population.

The agency says the Black population faces “social and economic challenges linked to the historic and ongoing harms caused by colonial laws, policies and practices, including racial segregation and discriminatory immigration policies.”

“These challenges, compounded by anti-Black racism and systemic discrimination, have resulted in the overrepresentation of Black persons in Canada’s correctional system,” it said.

It calls the overrepresentation of Indigenous and Black adults in Canada’s corrections system “a significant and persistent concern.”

Wilson said the justice council in B.C. is working to reduce the overincarceration of Indigenous people, but notes it depends “on the legal system’s willingness to look at alternatives to incarceration and to address contributing factors.”

Diversion, she said, is the foundation of their strategy to address the root causes of criminality, such as poverty, addiction and trauma.

“It significantly reduces the rate of repeat offending and leads to safer communities for everyone,” Wilson said in the statement.

She said the council is piloting diversion programs on Lheidli Tenneh territory in Prince George, B.C., and noted there are 15 justice centres across B.C. that provide “access to culturally safe legal representation, support from Elders and community, and referrals to other services.”

“The progress we have made with our provincial and federal government partners in the last five years gives us hope that we can turn the tide, and we expect continued support of our transformative work,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 14, 2025.

Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press