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Black and indigenous criminals still “face a barrier at every step of the process” in the prison system
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May 31, 2022 • 12 hours ago • 4 minutes of reading • 188 comments A correctional officer looks at the Collins Bay Institution in Kingston, Ontario on Tuesday, May 10, 2016, during a visit to the facility. Photo of THE CANADIAN PRESS / Lars Hagberg
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OTTAWA – Just two years after work, Canada’s Auditor General Karen Hogan is already losing hope in the federal government’s ability, even desire, to improve its services.
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“As I approach the third term, I feel more frustrated than hopeful,” said Hogan, who took office in June 2020, during a news conference Tuesday after his office published its latest. four audits.
“As much as I would like to report that government programs and services improve once weaknesses are identified, I find that this is rarely the case.”
On Tuesday, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) released four new reports, three of which were follow-ups of previous audits conducted over the past decade.
Although the topics are: systemic barriers to the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), access to federal benefits for hard-to-reach populations, processing of disability benefits for veterans, and an assessment of the analysis based on the gender of the government, moreover, were quite different. Their conclusions were essentially the same: the government has not acted and the previously known problems that greatly affected vulnerable people have not improved.
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Fighting misogyny and systemic racism, Canadian public safety agencies said
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Prison guard raises concerns over “culture of impunity”
Black and indigenous criminals still “face a barrier at every step of the process” in the prison system. Half of Canada’s veterans applying for disability benefits are still waiting 39 or more “unacceptable” weeks to make a decision (and even more so if they’re French-speaking). The government also “does not improve the lives of some” because it does not know if even its outreach action that promotes benefits for hard-to-reach populations works.
“What do your findings say about gravity, how much does this government care” about “vulnerable populations, racialized populations, diverse populations … beyond words?” a journalist asked Hogan.
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“There are a lot of commitments, a lot of action plans,” Hogan said. “But it’s time for all of this to really translate into different concrete and real outcomes for Canadians … actually taking some meaningful action to target these vulnerable populations.”
In his report on systemic barriers to the correctional system, Hogan found that indigenous and black criminals faced barriers and a stricter outcome at every step of the prison process, from entry to release.
The report’s findings were compelling and showed little improvement over the years for black and indigenous offenders, although previous audits highlighted many of the current issues in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
For example, they were twice as likely to be assigned higher levels of security when they entered prison than other criminals, and to be imprisoned longer than other criminals.
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“Offenders’ initial security placements affect their chances of parole and the length of their sentences in prison. Offenders initially placed on minimum security are more likely to be released on parole at the time they are released. eligible for release than those at higher levels, ”the report says.
“Disparities were present from the time the criminals entered the federal institutions.”
Between April 2018 and December 2021, indigenous men accounted for more than 36% and black men accounted for nearly 15% of all high-security criminals, meaning they accounted for more than half of all Canada’s highest security prison population.
Indigenous women also account for a disproportionate amount of income to the maximum security prison population (70%) during the same period. Only black women are well below the average (less than one percent) of criminals with the highest security rating.
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Many of these problems are long-standing and were found in previous audits, Hogan worried.
“We note that the over-representation of indigenous men and women in higher levels of security is a long-standing issue. We made similar observations in our 2016 audit,” the report added.
The OAG also found that while the government has a security rating tool called the Custody Rating Scale, CSC employees regularly and disproportionately override the results to give Indigenous criminals a level of security. higher.
CSC Commissioner Anne Kelly said she accepted all six new OAG recommendations and pledged to conduct reviews of the custody rating scale as well as strengthen oversight in the department.
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“The disproportionate over-representation of indigenous and black criminals in our criminal justice system, including corrections, forces us to look at systemic barriers and also to openly discuss the issue of systemic racism,” it said in a statement.
In another report, the OAG found that veterans who first applied for disability benefits waited an average of 39 weeks to make a decision, which is more than double the 16-week service standards. Veterans Affairs Canada.
A third report concluded that both the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and the Canada Employment and Social Development Corporation (ESDC) “had not done enough” to connect hard-to-reach populations with benefits intended to support to low-income Canadians. Despite new government outreach activities since 2018, the OAG found that ESDC and CRA had only “limited” evidence that their efforts were bearing fruit.
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A fourth follow-up audit of a 2015 audit of the government’s analytical system to determine the “gender” impacts of its decisions, programs, or policies found that there are still issues in the ability of certain departments and agencies to carry perform gender-based analyzes in addition (GBA Plus) correctly.
In all cases, the departments or ministers responsible said that they accepted the OAG’s recommendations and admitted that there was more work to be done.
But if the recommendations are put into practice and the work done is something Hogan remains skeptical.
“I am always surprised when the recommendation is accepted and then no action is taken. But I feel especially frustrated when I look at the reports we have here because they affect people. And I just expect better from the government. I think Canadians expect better from the government, “Hogan said.
“I think it’s time for all these commitments to come together with concrete actions.”
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