News Release: Report calls for significant shift of funding from Correctional Service Canada to Indigenous governments and organizations
Today, Prisoners’ Legal Services released Decarceration through Self-determination: Ending the mass incarceration of Indigenous people in Canada. The report calls on Canada to shift $1 billion each year from the Correctional Service Canada (CSC) to Indigenous governments and organizations to provide alternatives to prison, and independent services for Indigenous people in prison and on community release.
$1 billion represents the approximate amount of money CSC spends incarcerating Indigenous people each year, who represent 32% of people in federal prison. CSC’s annual budget is roughly $3 billion.
Decarceration through Self-Determination arrives at its recommendations through centring the voices of Indigenous people in prison, who are disproportionately warehoused in high levels of security, subjected to solitary confinement and uses of force, and prevented from accessing Indigenous-run healing lodges due to CSC’s racist security classification policies and risk assessments. The report also shines a light on the abuse of Indigenous people in prison, whose experiences are comparable to the treatment of Indigenous children in residential schools.
Among the report’s 18 recommendations, Prisoners’ Legal Services calls on Canada to end its delegation of powers to CSC to negotiate and set parameters on Indigenous-run alternatives to prison under s 81 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. Instead, it calls on Canada to fund Indigenous governments and organizations who wish to provide alternatives to prison, based on respect for the right to self-determination. The report highlights some of the inspiring work already being done by Indigenous governments and organizations who provide support to Indigenous people involved in the criminal legal system.
“The mass incarceration of Indigenous people in Canada violates domestic law, and international law against torture and colonial genocide. If Canada wants to honour Truth and Reconciliation, it must put an end to this practice, and implement real change by shifting funding priorities and respecting Indigenous law,” said Jennifer Metcalfe, executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services, who is a white settler living and working on the unceded land of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Qayqayt Nations.
“Indigenous Peoples have always had systems of government, law and dispute resolution that, before colonization, worked to maintain a unified, respectful and just society. Indigenous people affected by prisons, Elders, and Indigenous governments and organizations doing this important justice and reintegration work know what is effective to repair harm in their communities,” said Karly Morgan, legal advocate at Prisoners’ Legal Services, who is a member of the Haida Nation.
The full report is available here: Decarceration through Self-determination.
Media contact:
Jennifer Metcalfe, Executive Director
604-636-0470
jmetcalfe@pls-bc.ca
