Indigenous-Settler Incarceration Disparities in Canada: How Tribal Justice Programming Helps Urban Indigenous Youth
Abstract
There are various factors that help to explain the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in Canada’s correctional institutions. Some of these factors include Indian residential school effects, family breakdown, poverty, addictions, social exclusion, institutional racism, social inequality and racial discrimination. For Indigenous peoples, Western justice standards are often seen as culturally inappropriate and alien (Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, 1999; CFNMP, 2004; Comack, 2012; Green & Healey, 2003; LaRocque, 1997; Hansen & Callihoo 2014; Milward, 2013; Ravelli, & Webber, 2010; Smith, 1999).
This article explores how the Saskatoon Tribal Council Justice—Extra Judicial Measures Program staff (community justice workers) deal with urban Indigenous youth offenders. It discusses the consciousness of community justice workers in the way they perceive and understand the value and impact of their work. It examines, in other words, an Indigenous interpretation of the services being offered to youth offenders in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada and the meanings of success from the youth workers perspectives in how they evaluate the effectiveness of their work. The fundamental research question discussed in this article is; how does the Saskatoon Tribal Justice Program help urban Indigenous youth? The first part of the article provides the context, followed by a review of relevant Indigenous justice literature. Next, the following sections proceed with the research site, methods and analysis, followed by conclusions and recommendations. This may seem to be too large a task for one article, I am actually making one basic claim. I am asserting that some central and exciting methods have been made in Indigenous thinking about justice and crime, and these methods have demonstrated to be beneficial to Indigenous youth. I will present the perceptions of the Indigenous youth justice workers to show that youth offenders can move away from criminal activity: that healing offenders rather than punishing them is well grounded in and accepted within Indigenous justice programs, although not widely accepted in the modern criminal justice system in Canada.
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