Racialization & the Politics of Judicial Typecasting

Indian Act year & purpose

1. 1876

2. Control & Assimilation

What section for the criminal code was interpreted for the first time in R v Gladue?

s.718.2(e) (Bill C-41)

Stats of Indigenous people incarcerated provincially

• Indigenous women represent about 3% of the adult population 

  • 26% of provincial/territorial admissions

    • 38% of women admitted -> Indigenous

    • 26% men admitted -> Indigenous

Stats of Indigenous people incarcerated federally

• Indigenous women represent about 3% of the adult population 

  • Federal -> 31% of female admissions

  • 23% of men admissions

Stats of Indigenous youth incarcerated

• Indigenous youth make up 7% of adolescents in the general population

  • 35% of youth admitted to correctional services were Indigenous

  • Indigenous girls -> 44% of female youth admitted

  • Indigenous boys -> 29% of male youth admitted

Gladue Court

Aims to incorporate Indigenous values, principles, and conceptions of justice into court processes and proceedings and culturally appropriate rehabilitation

Restorative Justice

Approach to crime & conflict that bring many into a non-hierarchal setting to address a harm committed and set a path to reconciliation among community

Mandatory Sentencing

Minimum sentence for a crime enacted by the Harper government

Troubling because unlike a judges sentence that can be appealed, prosecutors decision can only be reviewed for abuse of process

Crimes committed by women

Often “survival crimes” linked to their marginalized status

Helen Betty Osborne

19 year old teenager, kidnapped, stabbed, abandoned body in a bush

Only one of the four men was convicted of second degree murder

Cindy Gladue

36 year old, Cree sex worker, killed by a man who hired her for two nights and left in a hotel bathroom

Repeatedly referred to as native and prostitute during trial. First trial, he was acquitted, On appeal, sentenced to 12.5 years for manslaughter

Pamela George

Single mother and sex worker, kidnapped, raped and beaten

Judge implied consent because she was a sex worker, sentenced the two men to 6.5 years for manslaughter and one received parole after ½ sentence

Victimization-Criminalization-Incarceration Cycle

Describes the experiences of Indigenous women in the criminal justice system and may help to systematically direct efforts to reduce the trauma and oppression of this population, in both the short and long term.

3 Main Components of the Mother-Child Program

1. Full-time residency of the child with their mother in the facility

2. Part-time or occasional residency of the child at the facility

3. Regular visits of the child to the facility

Over-riding goal of the Mother-Child program

 Facilitate, maintain and develop the mother-child bond

Development of Mother-Child Program

• Women serving sentenced in federal prisons has increased by +50%

  • More likely to be younger, single, and Aboriginal

• MCP created in 1990 as a response

Aboriginal women and max security

Overrepresented

• 45% of maximum security prisoners

• Many Aboriginal women are excluded from participation in the MCP due to their security classification

Central Park Five

• Wrongful conviction of five black men in 1989

• Removed from parents and interrogated for hours

• It ended up being one person, not five

• They grew up in jail for a crime they did not commit

Susan Smith

Woman who killed her two children, strapped them into the car seats and pushed the car into a lake. She said a black man carjacked her and took her kids until confessing in 1994.

• Recently denied parole

Chris Cooper

• A Black birdwatcher had the police called on him after asking a woman to leash her dog in the park

• Weaponizing the police and waste of resources

• Amy Cooper lost her job and was charged with a misdemeanor

Racialization

Something done to a group by some social agent, at a certain time, for a given period, through various contexts, made real by social (not biological) factors and relations

Example of a race that has been “destroyed”

Italians/Irish