A Case Study of Diversity in Corrections:
The Black Inmate Experience in Federal Penitentiaries
Final Report
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION AND SCOPE OF THE INVESTIGATION
1. The face of Canadian corrections is changing. As the Canadian population has become increasingly diverse so too has the federal offender population. The visible minority1offender population (community and incarcerated) has increased over the past 5 years by 40%. Visible minorities now constitute 18% of the total federally sentenced offender population (those incarcerated and in the community) which is largely consistent with representation rates in Canadian society (19.1%)2. In 2011/12, Caucasians continued to make up the largest proportion of the federal offender population (62.3%). By comparison, Aboriginals represented 19.3%, Blacks 8.6%, Asians3 5.4%, and Hispanics4 0.9% of the population respectively5. Increasing diversity presents important challenges for the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), particularly with respect to the relevancy of programs and services as well as representative hiring and the need for greater staff cultural competence, awareness and sensitivity.
2. Prejudice and bias, particularly with respect to Aboriginal peoples, have been well documented in studies and inquiries of the Canadian criminal justice system6. However, little Canadian research has systematically explored the treatment of visible minorities within the criminal justice system and even less so on their experiences in correctional facilities, primarily because of the lack of or limited access to data. The principal Canadian study in this field, conducted by The Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System7, examined the extent to which criminal justice practices, procedures and policies in the police, courts and correctional institutions in Ontario reflected systemic racism. Overall, the Commission found evidence of systemic racism within each of the components of the criminal justice system and made a number of recommendations to improve its accountability. Specifically, with respect to correctional institutions, the Commission found evidence of pervasive racial hostility and intolerance within prison environments, racial segregation of inmates within and among prisons and racial inequality in regards to the delivery of institutional services. While this study is now dated and was conducted in provincial institutions in only one province, it provides important contextual information, both from a qualitative and quantitative perspective, on the experiences of Black inmates8 and visible minorities more generally, within the Canadian criminal justice system and provides a foundation for the present case study.
3. The 2011/12 Annual Report of the Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI) identified Black9 inmates as one of the fastest growing sub-populations in federal corrections. It highlighted the increasing over-representation of this group relative to their proportion within the Canadian population. Over the last 10 years, the number of federally incarcerated Black inmates has increased by 75% (767 Black inmates in 2002/03 to 1340 Black inmates in 2011/12) with most of this increase occurring in the last 6 years (2006/07 to 2011/12)10. Black inmates now account for 9.3%11 of the total federal prison population (up from 6.1% in 2002/03) while representing approximately just 2.9%12 of the Canadian population (see diagram)
