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Indigenous people account for five per cent of Canada’s population.

“I don’t think there’s a person alive in Canada that hasn’t heard there’s over-representation,” said Chris Hay, executive director of the John Howard Society of Edmonton. “And yet, in the last 25 years, the problem’s actually gotten worse. It hasn’t gotten better with all this knowledge and royal commissions, commissioned by the government, it hasn’t even stayed the same, it’s actually gotten worse for Indigenous persons.”

Hay said the reasons behind the rising numbers are vast and complex and range across a number of social aspects.

Senator Patti Laboucane-Benson spent 23 years with Native Counselling Services of Alberta. She said a lack of programming and a broken custody rating scale contribute to Indigenous prisoners becoming stuck in the criminal justice system.

“Until Correctional Services Canada (CSC) works more meaningfully with Indigenous communities and agencies to provide that kind of programming there’s nothing of consequence to heal historic trauma within the Canadian prison system,” said Laboucane-Benson.

The senator also pointed out Indigenous offenders are more commonly classified at a higher level on the custody rating scale, limiting the programming available to them.

“If people are kept in maximum security and are released from there they just walk out the prison doors on to parole and there’s no slow, meaningful, purposeful reintegration methods in place,” said Laboucane-Benson.