Canada

“We keep going to the most expensive, least effective system, most expensive in terms of human and social cost, but also financial cost, the amount of money that it will cost to put in place more prison beds, more people being held longer in custody if those resources were invested in communities, in particular in First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities, we would see far better results.”

“We already know that Indigenous people are significantly overrepresented in Canadian incarceration facilities,” Rheana Worme, a criminal defence lawyer from Kawacatoose First Nation in Treaty 4 and practicing in Saskatoon. “Indigenous women make up 50 per cent of the federal prison population and Indigenous youth make up 40 per cent of all youth admissions in provincial and territorial correctional facilities.”

“The practical application of this bill is that we are going to see more Indigenous people behind bars, not because they’re dangerous, but because they can’t meet bail conditions that were never designed for Indigenous people, for remote communities, or for under-resourced communities.