APTN InFocus with Cheryl McKenzie
Two former Indigenous inmates share their experience being incarcerated within Canada’s correctional system.
According to the Correctional Investigator of Canada, Indigenous inmates are more likely to be classified as maximum security, spend more time in segregation and serve more of their sentence behind bars compared to non-Aboriginal inmates.
Also in this edition, how the BC Civil Liberties Association is challenging the use of solitary confinement in Canadian prisons as unconstitutional, arguing the practice is discriminatory against Aboriginal people and those with mental health conditions.
Canada, if you want to know how to treat our Ndns properly then refer to the Utah Department of Corrections. Our Ndns have a lower recidivism rate as a result of Cultural programs that promote connection to their heritage.
Summed up best by the fact Benjamin Franklin noted. That fact being American Ndns had no police, no tyranny, no one to compell them to obey the law, yet they had very little crime and enjoyed more freedom. As Aristotle wrote,
“I have gained this by philosophy, that I do without having to be comand what others do only from fear of the law.”
Truly it is we who are the primitive barbarians when such a fundamental truth as morality is ignored as a necessary central theam to reform.