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Over the last decade, the number of women in Canada’s jails has spiked 30 per cent.

Even more troubling, after a 60-per-cent increase over the same period, Indigenous female prisoners now account for 37 per cent of all incarcerated women, and 50 per cent of women in maximum security.

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According to the 2017 correctional investigator report, there is no evidence of increased female criminality. Women in custody are in fact likely to be victims of physical (90 per cent) and sexual (67 per cent) abuse themselves, with addiction issues and children relying on them.

At a recent Senate Open Caucus meeting, a panel of experts laid out the factors at play in the recent increases:

Poverty leading to crime and violence through a social pipeline of historic racism and intergenerational trauma, combined with limited access to social services;

The last decade’s tough-on-crime agenda that emphasizes public safety, with less attention paid to reintegration, retraining and prevention services;