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Aboriginal youth in Canada are 1.4 times more likely to be incarcerated than their non-aboriginal peers, according to a study by the British Columbia Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.

A possible explanation for the unevenly distributed rates could be that police target aboriginal youth more frequently. But the Urban Health Research Initiative admits this claim needs to be researched further.

The study, titled “Aboriginal street-involved youth experience elevated risk of incarceration,” was authored in part by Kora DeBeck, an assistant professor in the school of public policy at Simon Fraser University and research scientist for the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.

"Given what we know about the destructive impacts of the imprisonment of youth, in the context of this study, preventing aboriginal youth from becoming incarcerated is crucial," DeBeck said, speaking about the timeliness and necessity of such a study.

The study is by no means a political move, rather an acknowledgement of the fact that aboriginal youth in Canada are at higher risk of being jailed. It aims to understand the reasons and proffer suggestions to fix any institutional racism that might exist within the police department.

But in response to the findings, the Vancouver Police Department denied any deliberate targeting of aboriginal youths.

Constable Brian Montague of the VPD said in an email statement, "I will say that the VPD do not target aboriginal youth," adding "We target criminal behavior to reduce violence and increase public safety, regardless of a person's ethnicity, cultural background or gender."

The response is typical of any police department accused of racism, down to the highlighting of outreach programs the department champions.

Other institutions in Canada have been accused of treating aboriginal residents unfairly. A study released by the public health research group Wellesley Institute in February 2015 found that pervasive racism against aboriginals exists within Canada’s health-care system. The study was titled “First Peoples, Second Class Treatment,” and even revealed that aboriginal peoples experience bias so often, “that they often strategize on how to deal with it before visiting emergency departments, or avoid care altogether.”

The study on incarceration rates of aboriginals looked at 1,050 youth, aged 14 to 26, between September 2005 and May 2013. 248 youths, or one-quarter, were identified as Aboriginal.

34 percent of non-aboriginal participants in the study reported being incarcerated, compared to 44 percent of aboriginals over the same period, according to DeBeck.

Staggeringly, only four percent of the Canadian population is aboriginal, yet the community makes up 25 percent of inmates in provincial and federal prisons.

With the release in June 2015 of an exhaustive study and archive of abuses committed in residential schools, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has put forward 94 recommendations to compensate and provide some semblance of justice for the decades of abuses committed on aboriginal peoples.

The abuses continue today, in the form of incarceration and living conditions. Many of Canada’s upwards of 200 reservations still have critically little access to water.

Ry Moran, director of the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation said in an interview in reference to the TRC’s findings, “This is, fundamentally, going to be about a conversation of hard truths.”