On the 21st of January 2020, a report was published by Canada’s Correctional Investigator Dr. Ivan Zinger which details the bleak realities of the Canada’s so-called justice system. In his report Dr. Zinger discovered that while Indigenous people account for roughly 5% of the overall population, they now account for 30% of the federal prison population. This number has been steadily rising from around 20% in 2010 and 17% in 2000 (showing a noticeable spike in the last decade). Furthermore, Indigenous women account for 42% of their respective prison population. Indigenous people make up 54% of the prison population in Alberta.

The report also elucidates that on top of being over-represented in prisons in general, Indigenous people are more likely to be sent to maximum-security facilities and while incarcerated are more commonly subjected to solitary confinement and violence at the hands of correctional officers. They are also less likely to be granted parole. Dr. Zinger lamented that, while concerning, these findings were not surprising given what he described as a “deepening Indigenization” of the correctional system and the “consistently poor outcomes for Indigenous people in federal corrections.”

Dr. Zinger also emphasized that the Correctional Service of Canada, in spite of their attempts to wash their hands of the issue by claiming they have no control over ‘upstream’ factors as they are on the ‘receiving end’ of the criminal justice system, “makes its own unique and measurable contribution to the problem of over-representation.”

In light of this report, groups are once again reiterating their call for the pardon and release of all non-violent Indigenous prisoners. Bob Aloneissi, a lawyer associated with two such groups, Liberty Law and the Criminal Trial Lawyer Association’s Committee to Reduce Aboriginal Incarceration, has been quoted as saying “Something radical, I guess, has to happen because the situation is so radical.” In response to alleged investments from the Liberal government for the support of Indigenous former inmates, Aloneissi said “There are no programs. I’m not sure where this federal funding has gone. I’m just not sure where those resources went, but the people on the ground will say there’s nowhere to send individuals.”

Curiously, or perhaps unsurprisingly, Dr. Zinger’s report and subsequent coverage on the issue of Indigenous prisoners by the bourgeois press fail to mention one crucial thing: prison labour. In Canada, Indigenous prisoners (and their fellow inmates) are paid as little as $5.25 a day through the CORCAN program. Their labour is used not merely to eliminate costs for the system which imprisons them, but their labour is hyper-exploited at a level akin to slavery in the production of goods and services which directly support the Department of National Defense and other institutions of the government that continues the genocide of Indigenous people to this very day.

Those calling for the pardon of all non-violent Indigenous prisoners should not only be met with our vigorous support, but indeed their immediate goal must also be brought to it’s logical, radical conclusion: the abolition of the Canadian prison system, and the dismantling of the Canadian colonial project that has been forced on this land and the people.