Rule of Law, Settler Colonialism, and Overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian Criminal Justice (legal) System
Rule of Law, Settler Colonialism, and Overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian Criminal Justice (legal) System

Author: Frank T. Lavandier

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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The problem of overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in the Canadian criminal justice (legal) system, particularly its prisons, has been well documented. In 1996, following a comprehensive review of the Criminal Code of Canada, federal legislation, commonly known as Bill C-41, received royal assent. One of its legislative amendments, section718.2 (e), was, in part, introduced to remedy the overrepresentation problem, legally obligating judges to utilize incarceration as a remedy of last resort and with particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders. In 1999, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) handed down the seminal R. v. Gladue decision, which constituted the first-time court responsibilities were set out in response to amendments made in the Criminal Code. Analytically centring settler colonialism, this project examines how section 718.2 (e) and R. v. Gladue has been implemented in the Province of Prince Edward Island (PEI). This research project reveals that in most jurisdictions across Canada, including PEI, remediation of the overrepresentation problem has not yet been fully realized, and, in fact, is getting worse. It explores, by way of case-law (document)analysis; interviews with key informants in the conventional adversarial Canadian criminal justice (legal) system, Indigenous Gladue Writers and Elders; the application of section 718.2 (e), R. v. Gladue, along with its guiding principles, and assesses how the implementation process should be operationalized in “theory,” compared to how it is currently taking place in “practice” in PEI. Keywords: Indigenous peoples, section 718.2 (e), R. v. Gladue, key informant

Decolonizing Law
Decolonizing Law

Author: Sujith Xavier

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-05-24

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 100039655X

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This book brings together Indigenous, Third World and Settler perspectives on the theory and practice of decolonizing law. Colonialism, imperialism, and settler colonialism continue to affect the lives of racialized communities and Indigenous Peoples around the world. Law, in its many iterations, has played an active role in the dispossession and disenfranchisement of colonized peoples. Law and its various institutions are the means by which colonial, imperial, and settler colonial programs and policies continue to be reinforced and sustained. There are, however, recent and historical examples in which law has played a significant role in dismantling colonial and imperial structures set up during the process of colonization. This book combines usually distinct Indigenous, Third World and Settler perspectives in order to take up the effort of decolonizing law: both in practice and in the concern to distance and to liberate the foundational theories of legal knowledge and academic engagement from the manifestations of colonialism, imperialism and settler colonialism. Including work by scholars from the Global South and North, this book will be of interest to academics, students and others interested in the legacy of colonial and settler law, and its overcoming.

Justice, Indigenous Peoples, and Canada
Justice, Indigenous Peoples, and Canada

Author: Kathryn M. Campbell

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-12-19

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 0429665156

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Justice, Indigenous Peoples, and Canada: A History of Courage and Resilience brings together the work of a number of leading researchers to provide a broad overview of criminal justice issues that Indigenous people in Canada have faced historically and continue to face today. Both Indigenous and Canadian scholars situate current issues of justice for Indigenous peoples, broadly defined, within the context of historical realities and ongoing developments. By examining how justice is defined, both from within Indigenous communities and outside of them, this volume examines the force of Constitutional reform and subsequent case law on Indigenous rights historically and in contemporary contexts. It then expands the discussion to include theoretical considerations, particularly settler colonialism, that help explain how ongoing oppressive and assimilationist agendas continue to affect how so-called "justice" is administered. From a critical perspective, the book examines the operation of the criminal justice system, through bail, specialized courts, policing, sentencing, incarceration and release. It explores legal frameworks as well as current issues that have significantly affected Indigenous peoples, such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, human rights, resurgence and identity. This unique collection of perspectives exposes the disconcerting agenda of historical and modern-day Canadian federal government policy and the continued denial of Indigenous rights to self-determination. It is essential reading for those interested in the struggles of the Indigenous peoples in Canada as well as anyone studying race, crime and justice.

Indigenous Criminology
Indigenous Criminology

Author: Chris Cunneen

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2016-07-27

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1447321758

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Indigenous Criminology is the first book to explore indigenous peoples' contact with criminal justice systems comprehensively in a contemporary and historical context. Drawing on comparative indigenous material from North America, Australia, and New Zealand, it both addresses the theoretical underpinnings of a specific indigenous criminology and explores this concept's broader policy and practice implications for criminal justice at large. Leading criminologists specializing in indigenous peoples, Chris Cunneen and Juan Tauri argue for the importance of indigenous knowledge and methodologies in shaping this field and suggest that the concept of colonialism is fundamental to understanding contemporary problems of criminology, such as deaths in custody, high imprisonment rates, police brutality, and the high levels of violence in some indigenous communities. Prioritizing the voices of indigenous peoples, this book will make a significant and lasting contribution to the decolonizing of criminology.

Justice in Paradise
Justice in Paradise

Author: Bruce Clark

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2004-05-28

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9780773528277

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An account of the author's life and his battles on behalf of Native rights and the rule of law.

Colonialism Is Crime
Colonialism Is Crime

Author: Marianne Nielsen

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2019-09-20

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 0813598710

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There is powerful evidence that the colonization of Indigenous people was and is a crime, and that that crime is on-going. In this book Nielsen and Robyn present an analysis of the relationship between these colonial crimes and their continuing criminal and socially injurious consequences that exist today.

The Colonial Problem
The Colonial Problem

Author: Lisa Monchalin

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2016-03-08

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 1442606649

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Indigenous peoples are vastly overrepresented in the Canadian criminal justice system. The Canadian government has framed this disproportionate victimization and criminalization as being an "Indian problem." In The Colonial Problem, Lisa Monchalin challenges the myth of the "Indian problem" and encourages readers to view the crimes and injustices affecting Indigenous peoples from a more culturally aware position. She analyzes the consequences of assimilation policies, dishonoured treaty agreements, manipulative legislation, and systematic racism, arguing that the overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in the Canadian criminal justice system is not an Indian problem but a colonial one.

Unsettling Colonialism in the Canadian Criminal Justice System
Unsettling Colonialism in the Canadian Criminal Justice System

Author: Vicki Chartrand

Publisher: Athabasca University Press

Published: 2023-12-08

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 1771993685

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Canada’s criminal justice system reinforces dominant relations of power and further entrenches the country in its colonial past. Through the mechanisms of surveillance, segregation, and containment, the criminal justice system ensures that Indigenous peoples remain in a state of economic deprivation, social isolation, and political subjection. By examining the ways in which the Canadian justice system continues to sanction overtly discriminatory and racist practices, the authors in this collection demonstrate clearly how historical patterns of privilege and domination are extended and reinforced.

Reconciliation, Transitional and Indigenous Justice
Reconciliation, Transitional and Indigenous Justice

Author: Krushil Watene

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-05-21

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1000061272

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Reconciliation, Transitional and Indigenous Justice presents fifteen reflections upon justice twenty years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa introduced a new paradigm for political reconciliation in settler and post-colonial societies. The volume considers processes of political reconciliation, appraising the results of South Africa's Commission, of the recently concluded Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and of the on-going process of the Waitangi Tribunal of Aotearoa New Zealand. Contributors discuss the separate politics of Indigenous resurgence, linguistic justice, environmental justice and law. Further contributors present a theoretical symposium focused on The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice, authored by Colleen Murphy, who provides a response to their comments. Indigenous and non-Indigenous voices from four regions of the world are represented in this critical assessment of the prospects for political reconciliation, for transitional justice and for alternative, nascent conceptions of just politics. Radically challenging assumptions concerning sovereignty and just process in the current context of settler-colonial states, Reconciliation, Transitional and Indigenous Justice will be of great interest to scholars of Ethics, Indigenous Studies, Transitional Justice and International Relations more broadly. With the addition of one chapter from The Round Table, the chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in the Journal of Global Ethics.

Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice
Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice

Author: Kent Roach

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2019-01-21

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0773556451

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In August 2016 Colten Boushie, a twenty-two-year-old Cree man from Red Pheasant First Nation, was fatally shot on a Saskatchewan farm by white farmer Gerald Stanley. In a trial that bitterly divided Canadians, Stanley was acquitted of both murder and manslaughter by a jury in Battleford with no visible Indigenous representation. In Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice Kent Roach critically reconstructs the Gerald Stanley/Colten Boushie case to examine how it may be a miscarriage of justice. Roach provides historical, legal, political, and sociological background to the case including misunderstandings over crime when Treaty 6 was negotiated, the 1885 hanging of eight Indigenous men at Fort Battleford, the role of the RCMP, prior litigation over Indigenous underrepresentation on juries, and the racially charged debate about defence of property and rural crime. Drawing on both trial transcripts and research on miscarriages of justice, Roach looks at jury selection, the controversial “hang fire” defence, how the credibility and beliefs of Indigenous witnesses were challenged on the stand, and Gerald Stanley's implicit appeals to self-defence and defence of property, as well as the decision not to appeal the acquittal. Concluding his study, Roach asks whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's controversial call to “do better” is possible, given similar cases since Stanley's, the difficulty of reforming the jury or the RCMP, and the combination of Indigenous underrepresentation on juries and overrepresentation among those victimized and accused of crimes. Informed and timely, Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice is a searing account of one case that provides valuable insight into criminal justice, racism, and the treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada.