Health Care Inequity Affecting The Incarcerated Canadian Population

Provision [SCRGSP], 2005; Jeffries and Bond, 2012). It is also widely discussed that there is an overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system itself (Jeffries and Bond, 2009), representing up to one quarter of prisoners in Australia (Makkai and Payne, 2003; Payne, 2005). This essay will address the current issues that Indigenous Australians face within the criminal justice system, particularly, with courts. The aim of this essay besides addressing these issues will also be to provide suggestions or alternatives that may help resolve the presented issues and improve the experience for Indigenous Australians in court.

For decades, there has always been a very precarious relationship with aboriginal communities and the criminal justice system, especially with issues of indigenous victimisation and over-representation within the custody of police and prisons and the history of colonisation. Over-representation is the disproportionate numbers in which indigenous people come into custody compared to the non-indigenous. Although the justice system has been working together in order to overcome these deep-rooted issues and eliminate any negative associations with indigenous communities. This essay will outline the relationship between aboriginal communities and the police, the concerns associated with this relationship, why they are over-represented in the criminal justice system and the efforts that have been made to prevent this accumulating in the future.

Racial inequality inside of Canadian prisons is shocking and sometimes unbelievable when taken into account the percentage a minority group takes up in Canada’s overall population versus behind bars. The injustices against Canada’s First Nations people are unfortunately not just historic, as their mistreatment is still evident today. Despite representing only 3% of the population, First Nations account for about 25% of the prison population in provincial/territorial facilities. More specifically, 31% of the female population, and 22% of the male population were First Nations in 2015. More than one in five admissions to men’s prisons are of Aboriginal descent, and one in three in women’s prisons. Although it can be said that more and more attention has been drawn to this issue by citizens and politicians alike recently, First Nations people continue to suffer from poverty, injustice, and a lack of opportunities compared to the average Canadian citizen. About one in four native children live in poverty, leading to criminal activity, and eventually

Our modern society consist of many social problems. However, many Canadians have yet to acknowledge a major issue on our international community today. Within Canada, prison overcrowding has arisen and continues too. As many of Canadian prisons exceed its maximum capacity, we have yet not created a proper plan to execute this problem. Consequently, with the prison population accumulating, there is now a decline in correctional spending. Today, it costs over $115,000 to maintain an offender in an institution (CSC statistics 2014). As a result, the amount of inmates in custody throughout Canada are 36, 845 which includes 21, 704 in our provincial / territorial institution and 15,141 in our federal institution (Statistics Canada 2013/2014). Therefore,

There is alarming number of Indigenous Australia’s currently serving time in prisons and from 2001 the numbers has been increasing. According to Krieg (2006) Indigenous incarceration may be the direct consequences of inadequate housing, mental health, substance use, family violence and disability.

Statistics show how black men are six times more likely to go to prison than white men. Just like the US, Canada, as Nancy explains, the Indigenous incarceration rate is 10 times higher than the non-Indigenous population, which unfortunately is high than South Africa at the height of apartheid. If you live in Saskatchewan, and you are Indigenous, you are 33 times more likely to be incarcerated. Due to this statistic and many more, this is the reason why prison guard is among he fastest-growing public sector occupations on the Prairie.

Public Policies strive to protect all citizens across the nation, includes low-income citizens who often go unrecognized in society. To make sure this happens, legislature has put forth the “The Canada Health Act”, which requires the provincial government to meet certain expectations regarding public-health care and insurance plans. Though this act states that health services are free and accessible facilities, issues arise when citizens need urgent medical attention but appointment are unavailable until weeks later. Many of these poor individuals cannot afford to pay the extra amount to receive faster care as oppose to their rich counterparts.

How often do we stop to think about the minorities of this country and how they become involved and are treated in the criminal justice system? I surmise; only some of us will concern ourselves with such details. For some like myself; we might work with individuals of the Aboriginal community or have interacted with members of this group whether through school or work. Canada “had an Aboriginal identity in 2011 of 4 % or 1.4 million people” (Kelly-Scott and Smith, 2015). Of this total there is a gross overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in Canada’s Criminal Justice System. This overrepresentation of Aboriginals in the CJS comes as a result of socio economic factors, sentencing reforms, systemic discrimination, education and employment and victimization of Aboriginal women. In partial fulfilment of this course, this paper will address the leading factors which has led to the overrepresentation of this group in the CJS.

Minister if you will turn your attention to the following chart, which shows a comparison of imprisonment rates between different countries. It is thoroughly disappointing to see that the Aboriginal’s represent Australia with such substantial numbers. Minister there are alarming numbers the gravity of this situation transfers to other areas. Furthermore Western Australia the Aboriginal imprisonment rates are at an astounding 3,741, in comparison to the Aboriginal people the rest of Australia at

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) in 1991 provided documentation on the death of indigenous Australians in prison or police custody. In doing so the report highlighted the substantial over representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Criminal Justice system and provided detailed analysis of underlying factors. The reports findings were believed to be the foundation of change. However, regardless of a range of policy changes and crime prevention programs in repose to the report, over representation in the criminal justice system remains. The issue is one of the most significant social justice and public policy issue in the contemporary Australian criminal justice system. The RCIADIC made 339 recommendations, most of which have been implemented into the criminal justice system over the past two decades. Never the less the systematic over representation remains prevalent. The purpose of this essay is to understand over representation as it exists in the contemporary criminal justice system. Particular emphasise will be placed on the levels of women and youths in the criminal justice system, their contact with the system and empirically based risk factors pertaining to over representation. An evaluation of alternative programs in the pre and post sentencing stage and the impact such programs would have on the over representation will be conducted.

Consider what Blagg (2008) and Cunneen (2007) have said about the relationship between Aboriginal communities and the police. What are the major sources of concern, in relation to Aboriginal over-representation in the criminal justice system and what efforts have been made to reduce this over-representation?

The Bureau of Prisons carefully lists the inmate’s health care rights and the inmate’s responsibilities in order have access those rights. In the Federal Correction Institution at Terminal Island, California the Inmate Information Handbook lists out the specific rights to health care access each inmate has and then the handbook lists the inmate’s responsibility to be able to access the health care. An example is the inmate has the right to access all services on Terminal Island including medical, dental, and all support services but the

The over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system is a large problem in society and reasons as to why this may be occurring need to be examined (Walker & McDonald, 1995; AIC, 2013). Indigenous Australians make up less than three per cent of the overall Australian population, however Indigenous people are over-represented in Australian prison populations, with imprisonment rates that are around 12 times those of the rest of the Australian population (AIC, 2013). Rates of over-representation are even higher in juvenile detention, with a 10-17 year old Indigenous person being around 24 times more likely to be in detention than a non-Indigenous person of the same age (AIC, 2013; Cunneen & White, 2011). Indigenous Australians overrepresentation in the criminal justice system is usually due to offences pertaining to violence and public disorder (ABS, 2010; Hogg & Carrignton, 2006). This is endorsed by the fact that Indigenous Australians currently make up 40 per cent of those imprisoned for assault offences (AIC, 2013). The over representation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system may be attributed to a variety of reasons, known as risk factors (AIC, 2013).

Having poor heath care within the prison system is something that is very dangerous. It can lead to things such as accidental deaths, worsening pre-existing conditions, and conditions occurring that could have been prevented if the proper care was

Dominique Robert’s (2008) theoretical framework in the article “Prison and/as Public Health. Prison and Inmates as Vectors of Health in the New Public Health Era. The Case of Canadian Penitentiaries” focuses on structural elements that explain the use of correctional health care in the prison setting today and how this plays a role in the broader public health strategies in the outside community. He does this by explaining factors such as “the mobilisation of prison as a tool for the new public health” and "the production of inmates into healthcare ‘consumers’, along with the role of actuarial justice.”