Thank you very much for this opportunity to appear before this committee. Thank you for initiating this study on indigenous women in the federal justice and correctional systems. I am the executive director of Prisoners' Legal Services, which is the only full legal aid clinic for prisoners in Canada.
We provide legal services to federal and provincial prisoners in British Columbia on issues that affect their liberty rights as well as some health care and human rights Issues. In the past year, we have assisted prisoners with 2,462 legal issues.
In preparing for today, I attended our legal aid clinic at the Fraser Valley Institution for Women with some indigenous women in the maximum and medium security unit. On the day I visited, all the women in maximum security were indigenous. They told me that the design of the units meant there were too few women to interact with. The max unit holds approximately six women on each of two sides, which makes them feel isolated and leads to conflict. One prisoner said that officers looked at them as if they were in a zoo and they weren't treated like human beings.
The max units are behind glass walls with the officers on the other side of the glass. Prisoners commented that the officers do not interact with them except for security purposes. Indigenous women in both maximum and medium security talked about a lack of trust between indigenous prisoners and staff. They felt there was a lot of racism and discrimination against them by officers. One woman said they build relationships with each other and are accused of being in a game when they're not. They separate people who had bonded and supported each other.
They also felt that staff do not really apply aboriginal social history and that Gladue factors are often used against them in their security classification. The women I spoke with thought there were not enough indigenous programs at FVI, especially in the maximum security units. There's only one elder who is stretched too thin. They feel it isn't possible to deal with their trauma and abuse at FVI and the problems just open up wounds and make it more difficult to function in a security-driven environment. That isn't healing, one woman said. Many indigenous women stay in prison until their statutory release dates and feel set up to fail in the community without enough support or healing.
They said they need more one-on-one trauma and abuse counselling with mental health professionals from the outside. One woman said they need more indigenous-run healing lodges. She said the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge in Saskatchewan is great. She said that 60% of the staff are aboriginal and they understand what it's like to be on reserve. She said people who work here at FVI aren't sensitive to that and tell us to get over it.
Many of the women I spoke with talked about needing more access to their kids and families and connections with their homes and bands. Many talked about not having enough money to even make a phone call home. They talked about the barriers to having visits with family members if they have criminal records and not being approved for temporary absences home because it's too far. The women also felt they had too few opportunities for job skills training or for education beyond grade 12. I hope this committee will seek the voices of indigenous women prisoners during the course of this study.
The overrepresentation of indigenous prisoners, and most significantly women indigenous prisoners, is in large part a result of the multi-generational trauma Canada inflicted on indigenous people over 100 years of residential schools. With the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report, Canada has finally acknowledged the genocide we committed against indigenous people by forcibly taking children away from families to remote locations and subjecting them to programs designed to destroy their pride and self-respect. Canada is also responsible for taking land and resources from first nations and then denying sufficient resources for indigenous communities to be able to provide for themselves.
The overrepresentation of indigenous people in prison is a continuation of the genocidal practice of residential schools. It continues to separate parents from their children, and it fails to create an environment of trust and respect where healing might be possible. Many children of incarcerated indigenous mothers will be placed in foster care. An indigenous woman parolee in the 1990 report “Creating Choices”asked how they can be healed by those who symbolize the worst experiences of their past.
“Creating Choices” also notes that the indigenous people consulted by the task force on federally sentenced women stressed that the concept of punishment is alien to the aboriginal culture. The focus on restoration of harm and finding direction through teachings and spirituality in traditional culture is diametrically different from the punitive models of western culture.
Despite the legal requirement that the Gladue factors or aboriginal social history be considered by sentencing courts, CSC, and the Parole Board, indigenous people and especially indigenous women are imprisoned more at higher rates of security and for longer portions of their sentences than other Canadians.
CSC is required by section 18 of the corrections and conditional release regulations to classify prisoners according to minimum, medium, or maximum security according to three criteria, which are escape risk, risk to public safety, and the degree of supervision and control required within the penitentiary. This third factor is known as the institutional adjustment rating within CSC.
Of course, indigenous women tend to have high institutional adjustment rates, given that their imprisonment by Canada is an extension of the genocidal policies of residential schools. It would be next to impossible to have a low rating for institutional adjustment in a security-driven prison environment that perpetuates violence and does not achieve the foundation of trust and respect that is necessary for healing.
It is significant that all of the women who have been declared dangerous offenders in Canada are indigenous, and their designation is generally based on violent offences that have happened since they were imprisoned, not in the community. It is also significant that very few indigenous women achieve minimum security, which would allow them to access the only aboriginal healing lodge for women in Canada.
Trauma affects mental health and behaviour. Classifying prisoners to higher levels of security based on institutional adjustment problems results in prisoners who have suffered high rates of personal and intergenerational trauma being denied the support that they need to heal. The test for security classification should be amended to ensure that prisoners who have experienced trauma or have high mental health needs have more access to resources that would facilitate healing, such as mental health services and a non-punitive, culturally appropriate environment. In our clients' experiences, aboriginal social history is included in CSC's risk assessments as lip service and appears to have no impact on security classification decisions other than as a factor that increases security risk.
Prisoners' Legal Services calls on government to engage with first nations and indigenous organizations so that they may achieve self-determination in the administration of criminal justice. The federal Government of Canada should ensure that first nations and indigenous organizations have the resources to provide wraparound community services so that indigenous women have the support to heal from trauma and avoid contact with the criminal justice system; to administer indigenous courts based on restorative justice to ensure that there are community alternatives to incarceration at sentencing; and to be able to provide healing lodges by and for indigenous people under section 81 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, regardless of security level, so that no indigenous woman should be required to set foot in a federal prison again.
There should be funding and support to ensure that there are community resources to allow indigenous prisoners to be released to indigenous communities on parole or statutory release under section 84 of the CCRA, and they should be resourced to ensure support is there for indigenous women and men after the end of their sentences.
Canada should never again participate in the separation of indigenous families and communities and in the violence that is inherent in its imprisonment of indigenous women and men in federal prisons.
Thank you.