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Introduction
Aboriginal people are over-represented in the Canadian prison system. ... So what causes Aboriginal people to perpetrate them to commit crimes? ... It may be true that socio-economic disparities is the cause of criminal behaviour , but one must also understand the historical aspects that the Aboriginal people had gone through to understand why they live at the lower end of the socio-economic ladder. There is a need for alternative measures in addressing these numbers by having a new outlook based on Aboriginal ideas. Correctional Service of Canada (2003) state that it is clear that Aboriginal people have specific needs in prisons, but the cultural and spiritual aspects…must be taken into consideration, if we want to reduce the disproportionate rate at which they are incarcerated. ...
History
To understand Aboriginal criminal behaviour, one must understand the history of what the Aboriginal had suffered. Monture-Angus (1999) states that Aboriginal experience of this country’s history is not linear; the past is not simply the past (23). The effect that colonization has had on Aboriginal communities has been detrimental to Aboriginal peoples on an individual basis and community basis. The Canadian government should acknowledge the historical injustices of systematically depriving the Aboriginal people of their identity. The Canadian government passed and enforced policies and laws that were foreign to Aboriginal ideology. One such policy was the Indian Act:
The new justice system, as represented by the Indian Act and supplementary legislation,
soon was being employed to prevent Aboriginal people from expressing their traditional
beliefs, from pursuing their traditional economy and from asserting their political rights
as individuals or as members of Canadian society. In every aspect of life, from criminal
law to education and religious expression, from hunting to agriculture, from voting to the
use of lawyers, Aboriginal people run into regulations that restricted their freedom.
(Hamilton and Sinclair, 1991: 64)
They placed Aboriginal people on reservations, which most cases were plots of undesirable land and unable to maintain adequate subsistence for the community. ... It meant that Aboriginal people had to depend on the government for resources because they were unable to provide for themselves. The government violated the relationship between Aboriginal people and their connection to the land. Another step the government took was passing laws to outlaw traditional ceremonies, which were a part of Aboriginal spirituality. ... When policies on spirituality were placed, it questioned the very foundation of Aboriginal belief system and thinking, thus causing an injustice of freedom of expression and loss of identity.
The most profound impact to the Aboriginal way of life occurred in residential schools. ... This type of cultural suppression planted ideas that Aboriginal way of life and thinking was inferior compared to the European way of thinking. ...
The process of colonization of Aboriginal people by being dependent on the government, cultural suppression and preventing cultural reproduction to occur may shed some light on the reasons why Aboriginal communities are in the conditions they are in. Hamilton and Sinclair (1991) describe the socio-economic conditions of Aboriginal that they undoubtedly are the poorest of the poor. Low income rates, unemployment, poor health care, inadequate level of education, crowded and substandard housing conditions – all are characteristic of Aboriginal life in Canada (92). ... In Pelican Narrows, more than a third of the people live on welfare, most jobs that are available are government subsidized of working at the local store, health care is adequate but still need to leave the community for major illnesses, most drop-out of school before reaching high school and those who do finish do not pursue a post-secondary education, and more than half of the homes have at least 6 or more people living in a two or three bedroom house.
Approximate Word count = 2731
Approximate Pages = 10.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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