‘Indians are the Majority of the Prisoners’? Historical Variations in Incarceration Rates for Indigenous Women and Men in British Columbia

Abstract

Indigenous people have experienced relatively high incarceration rates in British Columbia, as elsewhere in North America, since the 1940s. Archival prison records, however, show that the incidence of Indigenous incarceration was lower than for other people before 1910. This evidence implies the crucial period for increasing incarceration of Indigenous peoples in British Columbias was from 1910 to 1940. The pattern for Indigenous women differed from that of men. Large numbers of Indigenous women were imprisoned in the 1870s and 1880s. The British Columbia Indigenous pattern has important similarities to the New Zealand Māori in the same era. Neither Indigenous experience is easily explained by group threat theory used to understand rising incarceration for African‐Americans in this period. Indigenous incarceration in settler states prior to the 1950s needs additional comparative research and theoretical understanding.

Penal nationalism in the settler colony: On the construction and maintenance of ‘national whiteness’ in settler Canada

“…This assimilative function of criminal justice systems was most evident in the increased arrest and incarceration of Indigenous women. While datasets for this period are scarce, scholars have been able to compile statistics from specific correctional institutions which all point to the post-war period as the beginning of the long trend in overincarcerating Indigenous women (Inwood and Roberts, 2020; Roberts and Reid, 2017; Sangster, 1999). Across the board, the primary charges laid against these women were public order and morality offences including those related to liquor, sex, and vagrancy.…”