Use of force unevenly applied in prisons By: Editorial Posted: 7:00 PM CST Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022

Opinion

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This article was published 15/02/2022 (947 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Black, Indigenous or people of colour are involved in nearly 60 per cent of use-of-force incidents in Canada’s federal prisons. Yet, inmates from those racialized groups only make up 44 per cent of the prison population.

That was a key finding revealed last week by Canada’s Correctional Investigator Ivan Zinger in his latest annual report.

Mr. Zinger has released several reports in recent years on the overrepresentation of Indigenous and Black people in federal penitentiaries. He has published data that show Indigenous and Black inmates serve higher proportions of their sentences behind bars than white inmates. He has also revealed how Indigenous inmates are disproportionately classified as high risk and placed in maximum-security institutions, while spending more time in solitary confinement.

In his most recent analysis, Mr. Zinger found that physical force used in prisons, including physical handling, use of batons, pepper spray and restraints, is higher among BIPOC inmates.

If you’re a white inmate in Canadian prisons you get treated one way; if you’re BIPOC, the evidence shows you get treated differently.

This should be a wake-up call for Correctional Service Canada, Mr. Zinger wrote.

“This finding provides compelling evidence to suggest that force is applied to Indigenous and Black individuals disproportionately, and possibly because of race, above and beyond more legitimate reasons,” Mr. Zinger wrote. “Put simply, race alone should not be a ‘risk factor’ for exposure to uses of force.”

The investigation examined nearly 10,000 occurrences of use-of-force between 2015 and 2020. Indigenous inmates in particular were overrepresented, accounting for 39 per cent of those involved in use-of-force incidents, while making up 28 per cent of the prison population.

Corrections officers have broad authority to use force in response to disruptive inmate behaviour. However, it should only be used in limited circumstances and with strict parameters, the report says. Without those controls, use-of-force is “vulnerable to the influence of implicit and explicit bias,” the report states.

Mr. Zinger has made recommendations to CSC in the past on the need to adopt more non-physical interventions, including de-escalation techniques. Despite those recommendations, use-of-force has been on the rise in Canadian prisons in recent years and BIPOC inmates have been disproportionately affected.

In his latest report, Mr. Zinger recommends that CSC develop an action plan to address the relationship between use-of force and “systemic racism” against BIPOC inmates. He said “actionable changes” should be made and reported to the public.

The analysis is a damning indictment of what goes on behind prison walls in Canada. It is further evidence that not only are Indigenous and Black people incarcerated at disproportionately higher rates than white people, their treatment differs based on race. In addition to being a human-rights violation, it undermines CSC’s rehabilitative objectives and perpetuates the cycle of incarceration in BIPOC communities.

Despite numerous recommendations from the Office of the Correctional Investigator to address systemic racism in prisons, little has changed. In fact, the overrepresentation of Indigenous and Black people in prison has worsened over the years. Political will among federal politicians to push for meaningful reform has been almost non-existent.

The federal government should change that. It should make it a priority to ensure those who serve time behind bars are treated humanely and equitably and are not discriminated based on race, gender, sexual orientation or any other individual characteristic.

Those are fundamental rights under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms — rights which apply to everyone, inside and outside of prison walls.