Lecture - past and ongoing confrontations between Indigenous people and law enforcement

The RCMP and the Enforcement of Indian Act

  • 1873: the northwest mounted police (NWMP) was established in 1873 to assert Canadian control over indigenous lands in the prairies.

  • 1867: BNA

  • 1876: Indian act

  • 1920: the NWMP, later rebranded as the RCMP in 1920, played a central role in suppressing Indigenous resistance and securing settler expansion.


The Colonialism of Incarceration (Nicolas, 2014)

  • incarceration is not a side effect of colonialism but a tool of colonial government

  • prisons function similarly to reserves, residential schools, and Indian agents.

  • the goal is Indigenous elimination, not rehabilitation.


The Growth of the Prison System

  • Canada has the 17th highest incarceration rate among 34 OECD countries.

  • Between 1986 and the 1990s, prison populations surged by over 25% federally and 15% provincially.

  • Indigenous incarceration rates skyrocketed during this period.

    The “Tough on Crime” Agenda

  • conservative policies in the 1900s and 2000s fueled indigenous imprisonment.

  • Omnibus crime bills increased sentences, reduced parole eligibility, and built more prisons.

  • Prisons became warehouses for Indigenous people rather than sites of justice.


Indigenous Overrepresentation in Prisons

  • Indigenous peoples = 3-4% of Canada’s population

  • Indigenous inmates = 27% of provincial/federal inmates

  • Indigenous women = 33.6% of federally sentenced women

  • Indigenous inmates receive harsher treatment and longer sentences.


Prisons as Colonial Control

  • Carceral power = settler sovereignty.

  • Prisons continue colonial projects of assimilation and destruction.

  • Surveillance, administrative segregation, and high-security classifications disproportionately affect Indigenous inmates.


Unsettled Times-Indigenous Incarceration and the Penal System

  • The penitentiary system emerged alongside Canada’s settler state.

  • Indigenous incarceration is not modern………


North-West Resistance (1885)