Canada: Indigenous Women Make Up One-Third of Prison Population

Indigenous women now represent 35 percent of females imprisoned in Canada despite making up only 2 percent of the population, Howard Sapers, Correctional Investigator of Canada, told CBC News this week.

This statistic is not new to the Native Women's Association of Canada, which has long urged justice officials to tackle the root causes resulting in such disproportionate incarceration rates.

"Sad to say, I'm not shocked by this," Dawn Harvard, interim president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, told CBC News. "This is unfortunately the direct result of what happens when a particular people are oppressed in their own territory."

Indigenous women are among the most vulnerable population group in Canada with 36 percent living in poverty, 16 percent accounting for the country’s murdered and missing women, and facing seven times higher suicide rates than their Canadian peers.

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The Native Women's Association points at ingrained stereotypes and prejudice causing the violence directed at indigenous women, an effect of past and present colonization of the Indigenous peoples.

"They expect them to do bad things," Harvard said. "A very small, petty crime can turn into what is in essence, a life-sentence."

Howard Sapers regrets being unable to push for necessary changes in his position as correctional investigator since he will be replaced by a new ombudsperson this year.

"We need some rethinking and one of the things that I'm very sorry that I'm not going to be able continue to pursue is improving the governance and accountability around aboriginal corrections in Canada," Sapers said. The correctional investigator confirmed with CBC that the incarceration rate is indeed linked to racism and poverty.

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