Policy Issues Regarding the Overrepresentation of Incarcerated Aboriginal Young Offenders in a Canadian Context

Corrado, Raymond R.; Kuehn, Sarah; Mărgăritescu, Irina

doi:10.1177/1473225413520361

Cited by 33 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These include residential instability, low levels of education, high levels of unemployment, alcohol and substance use issues, poverty, and severe family conflict. 36,38 However, in the current study, even after adjusting for many of these risk factors, Aboriginal ancestry remained independently associated with incarceration, suggesting that policing practices or other aspects of the current criminal justice system may be partly responsible.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 54%

“…39–41 In the context of the overrepresentation of Aboriginal youth in the criminal justice system, key relevant structural factors include the legacy of colonization and multi-century long, state-sponsored oppression. From the expropriation of land 37 , prohibition of language and cultural practices 42 , forcible removal of Aboriginal children into Church-run residential schools in the late 1800s onwards, 43,44 to the unaddressed intergenerational trauma 38,44 , continued economic marginalization, 36,38,44 and elevated rates of substance use and poverty today, 19,36,38 a myriad of factors contribute as underlying determinants of Aboriginal overrepresentation in prison populations. Indeed, an abundance of research has identified that Aboriginal peoples continue to experience marginalization and discrimination at much higher rates than non-Aboriginal peoples, 36,45,46 which appears to be consistent with our study findings.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Aboriginal street-involved youth experience elevated risk of incarceration

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objectives Past research has identified risk factors associated with incarceration among adult Aboriginal populations; however, less is known about incarceration among street-involved Aboriginal youth. Therefore, we undertook this study to longitudinally investigate recent reports of incarceration among a prospective cohort of street-involved youth in Vancouver, Canada. Study Design Prospective cohort study. Methods Data were collected from a cohort of street-involved, drug-using youth from September 2005 to May 2013. Multivariate generalized estimating equation analyses were employed to examine the potential relationship between Aboriginal ancestry and recent incarceration. Results Among our sample of 1050 youth, 248 (24%) reported being of aboriginal ancestry, and 378 (36%) reported being incarcerated in the previous six months at some point during the study period. In multivariate analysis controlling for a range of potential confounders including drug use patterns and other risk factors, Aboriginal ancestry remained significantly associated with recent incarceration (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=1.44; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.12–1.86). Conclusions Even after adjusting for drug use patterns and other risk factors associated with incarceration, this study found that Aboriginal street-involved youth were still significantly more likely to be incarcerated than their non-Aboriginal peers. Given the established harms associated with incarceration these findings underscore the pressing need for systematic reform including culturally appropriate interventions to prevent Aboriginal youth from becoming involved with the criminal justice system.

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 54%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aboriginal street-involved youth experience elevated risk of incarceration

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In many ways, the criminal justice system experiences of Indigenous Australians appear to echo those of minorities in the USA and Canada, with similar minority overrepresentation in the chronic offender groups. Most notably, the patterns of Indigenous overrepresentation in the criminal justice system [9] mirror those we see among Black, Hispanic, and Native American populations in the USA [45] as well as those we see among Indigenous populations in Canada [25,101]. Indigenous Australians are overrepresented among offenders [17,62,89] and although they account for approximately 3 % of the population [10], they make up over 25 % of the country's adult prison population [9].…”

Section: Race/ethnicity and Life Course Offending Trajectoriesmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…This means that 84.5 % of non-Indigenous females never have any formal contact with the criminal justice system by age 25 years. Rates of system contact for nonIndigenous males and Indigenous females fall somewhere in the middle, with 40 % of Indigenous females and 45 % of non-Indigenous males having at least one system contact by age 25. In what follows, we describe how these patterns of contact unfold and vary from age 10 to age 25 both within and across groups disaggregated by gender and Indigenous status (independently and jointly).…”

Section: The Samplementioning

confidence: 97%

Life Course Offending Pathways Across Gender and Race/Ethnicity

Broidy

Stewart

Thompson

et al. 2015

J Dev Life Course Criminology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose This paper aims to refine our understanding of life course offending patterns across gender and race/ethnicity and to advance work in this area by examining how gender and race/ethnicity interact to influence life course offending patterns. Methods We use criminal justice system data to construct a longitudinal offending cohort that includes all individuals born in 1983/1984 with at least one court finalization for a criminal offense in the state of Queensland between the ages of 10 and 25 years. The data include 41,280 offenders (25.6 % female; 8.9 % Indigenous Australian) responsible for 209,872 offenses (M=5.08, SD=12.31). Coupling these data with state-level census data for those born in 1983/1984 (N=129,782), we estimate cohort offending rates overall and disaggregated by gender and race/ethnicity both independently and jointly. Focusing on the offenders, we use semiparametric groupbased modeling to identify the number and longitudinal distributions of offending trajectories within the cohort and compare how subgroups defined by gender, Indigenous status, and their combination sort into these trajectories. Results Most of the birth cohort has little to no contact with the criminal justice system through age 25. However, patterns are not uniform across gender or race/ethnicity, with males and Indigenous Australians most likely to fit the serious and chronic offending trajectories. Gender and race/ethnicity also interact to influence offending patterns with non-Indigenous females significantly more likely than any other group to avoid system contact, while Indigenous males have comparatively exaggerated rates of contact. Moreover, Indigenous females offend in ways more similar to non-Indigenous males than females and, in some instances, evidence even more serious offending. J Dev Life Course Criminology (2015) Conclusions Developmental and life course models should highlight not just the operant developmental dynamics across key life stages or the relevant age-graded risk and protective factors at play, but also how gender and race/ethnicity condition these processes both independently and jointly.

show abstract

“…Fourth, whereas in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Indigenous peoples required permission from a colonial Indian agent to leave the reserve, containment continues through the prison system, where there are disproportionately higher rates of Indigenous peoples incarcerated and fewer Indigenous peoples being granted early parole compared with other groups (Corrado 2014;Owusu-Bempah et al 2014).…”

Section: Dhamoonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-presenting Genocide: The Canadian Museum of Human Rights and Settler Colonial Power

Dhamoon

2016

J. Race Ethnicity Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In settler societies like Canada, United States, and Australia, the bourgeoning discourse that frames colonial violence against Indigenous people as genocide has been controversial, specifically because there is much debate about the meaning and applicability of genocide. Through an analysis of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, this paper analyzes what is revealed about settler colonialism in the nexus of difficult knowledge, curatorial decisions, and political debates about the label of genocide. I specifically examine competing definitions of genocide, the primacy of the Holocaust, the regulatory role of the settler state, and the limits of a human rights framework. My argument is that genocide debates related to Indigenous experiences operationalize a range of governing techniques that extend settler colonialism, even as Indigenous peoples confront existing hegemonies. These techniques include: interpretative denial; promoting an Oppression Olympics and a politics of distancing; regulating difference through state-based recognition and interference; and depoliticizing claims that overshadow continuing practices of assimilation, extermination, criminalization, containment, and forced movement of Indigenous peoples. By pinpointing these techniques, this paper seeks to build on Indigenous critiques of colonialism, challenge settler national narratives of peaceful and lawful origins, and foster ways to build more just relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

show abstract

Policy Issues Regarding the Overrepresentation of Incarcerated Aboriginal Young Offenders in a Canadian Context

Cited by 33 publications

References 27 publications

Aboriginal street-involved youth experience elevated risk of incarceration

Aboriginal street-involved youth experience elevated risk of incarceration

Life Course Offending Pathways Across Gender and Race/Ethnicity

Re-presenting Genocide: The Canadian Museum of Human Rights and Settler Colonial Power

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About