9. The Justice System and Canada's Aboriginal Peoples: The Persistence of Racial Discrimination

Diamonds in the Rough: Bridging Gaps in Supports for At-Risk Immigrant and Refugee Youth

“…Those who ascribe to this theory maintain that some visible minorities are subject to over-policing, racial profiling, more false arrests and harsher sentencing than other groups. For example, systemic discrimination in the Canadian criminal justice system has been cited as a contributing factor in the over-representation of Aboriginal peoples in pre-trial detention and correctional facilities, as well as racial disparities in sentencing and parole decisions (Grekul and LaBoucane-Benson 2008;Hylton 2002;Williams 2001). Each of these models offers a unique explanation for the relationship between race, ethnicity, immigration and crime and calls for a different set of policy responses (Wortley 2003).…”

Impacts of disparate policing in Indian Country

“…Another dramatic limitation within the literature is that work that professes to explore racism in policing tends to focus primarily on African Americans. One must turn to Canadian and Australian literature for sophisticated work on the ways in which the policing of Aboriginal peoples is inextricably bound up with the legacy of colonisation (e.g., Australia 1992, Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1996, Neugebauer 1999, Cunneen 2001, Hylton 2002. In the USA, however, the limited literature that explores American Indian justice concerns tends towards decidedly a critical approach.…”

Nobody trusts them! Under- and over-policing Native American Communities

“…Much less common are critical analyses of the ways in which Native Americans are policed. Again, one must turn to Canadian and Australian literature for sophisticated work on the ways in which the policing of Aboriginal peoples is inextricably bound up with the legacy of colonization (e.g., Hylton 2002;Neugebauer 1999;Cunneen 2001; Royal Commission on Deaths in Custody; Royal Commission on Aboriginal People 1996). While American police were chasing down escaped slaves, Australian and Canadian officers were policing the boundaries of the scattered reserves; while American police were celebrating lynchings, Canadian and Australian police were helping with the forced removal of First Nations and Aboriginal children from their homes.…”