That is my niche. I actually did my Ph.D. thesis on Aboriginal women who are incarcerated in Quebec. I am currently completing a study on prison trajectories among Aboriginal men. At the same time, officials with the Correctional Service of Canada refused to allow me into the penitentiaries, because I wanted to collect information on Aboriginal spirituality programs in Quebec penitentiaries. My study was a little too touchy, politically speaking. So, I was not allowed access, but I was able to meet with people outside the grounds of the penitentiary.
I'm not trying to make political capital from this, but with respect to the question about building prisons, I just wrote an article called Painting the Prison ‘Red’: Constructing and Experiencing Aboriginal Identities in Prison. If we do build prisons, I can predict that we will end up filling them all, particularly with Aboriginal people. Proportionately speaking, Aboriginal women represent the social group with the greatest representation in prison.
The Commission of Inquiry into Certain Events at the Prison for Women in Kingston resulted in the creation of eight healing lodges. These are correctional facilities adapted to Aboriginal culture, with spirituality programs that focus on traditions and healing. Initial assessments of these healing lodges show the lack of independence of Aboriginal women. These women are still under the yoke of the Correctional Service of Canada and the same laws. The problem is governance; they don't want to give them any power. They do so very sparingly. They let them manage their dogs, dog barking and fences, because that is not too dangerous in terms of governance.
The problem with governance in Canada has always been the same. Canadian authorities are asking the Aboriginal people to convince them that they are capable of governing. If they can do that, they will be given a little bit of power. However, the current socio-economic status of the Aboriginal peoples is such that they are incapable of showing their capacity to govern. On the one hand, they say they have very high rates of suicide and levels of violence, but the government only hears what it wants to hear.
As regards rehabilitation, as you know, since 1996, Canada has taken a cross-cutting approach to corrections. They talk about risk management. But this approach is problematic. As soon as an Aboriginal person enters a detention facility, they ascertain his risk level. Unfortunately, however, several studies in Canada have shown that the risk of recidivism among Aboriginal inmates—women and men—is so high that they don't have access to rehabilitation programs. In order to access rehabilitation programs, you must have demonstrated that you pose a low or medium risk. It's quite paradoxical. Even if they did have access to rehabilitation programs, the fact is that the correctional system changes individuals, in terms of their beliefs and their way of behaving.
If you take that individual who has been changed by the system and put him in a criminogenic community… I am writing something now which is called:
“When Two Worlds Collide”.
It talks about what happens when two worlds collide as an individual is transformed. That is what the inmates tell us. They try to escape from prison, even though they're extremely fragile. When they're in prison, they don't want to go back to their community because they know they will start drinking again and that there's violence. So, they are prisoners of these two worlds.