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The dark legacy of residential schools Aboriginal offenders represent 88 per cent of inmates, and many of them have links to residential schoolNathalie Heiberg-Harrison Northern News Services Published Monday, January 9, 2012
"There's very few who don't have some connection to it," said the criminal defense lawyer. "It's their history and it's recent history." The last residential school closed in 1996 -130 years after the first one opened its doors - and more than 150,000 aboriginal students attended the schools across Canada. There were a total of 14 residential schools in the NWT, and today the North has the highest ratio of residential school survivors in Canada. This legacy, according to Wawzonek, has left an indelible mark on the justice system. "I had one client put it to me this way. He said, 'Look, I was raised in an institution, and an institution is where I belong.' He had difficulty functioning outside of that environment and had a lot of difficulties with people in authority, because he had a very negative experience being raised by persons in authority and not by parents, not in a loving home," she said. "If you've got a history, such as the residential school experience, that's demonstrably not positive for a majority of people, well then inevitably you have to look at how does that affect people's behaviour, how does that affect their interaction with people in authority. Does it increase their trust with someone in authority? I would suggest it probably doesn't." Few studies have been conducted examining the connection between residential school survivors and the justice system, but the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's own benchmark survey in 2008 identified survivors in jail as one of the demographics that needed to be reached out to more. The NWT Department of Justice doesn't track the number of survivors imprisoned in the territory either, but Sue Glowach, communications adviser for the department, acknowledged the prevalence of residential school survivors behind bars and said the department is trying to let their voices be heard. "We're currently looking to see if it's possible to have the (Truth and Reconciliation) Commission come into our facilities," she said. The negative effects of removing children from their families spans generations, according to Viola Thomas, a commission representative who attended the national event in Inuvik this past summer. "It's not just the children that are affected. It's the children of the children of the children," she said. In 2007-2008 aboriginal offenders represented 22 per cent of the prison population in Canada. In the NWT, aboriginal offenders represent 88 per cent of inmates. The 1999 Regina v. Gladue Supreme Court decision recognized that the aboriginal population is overrepresented, and allowed aboriginal circumstance to factor into sentencing. Bill C-10, the proposed Safe Streets and Communities Act tabled in Parliament, takes that power away from the court, Wawzonek said. Poverty, violence and substance abuse are large obstacles to overcome, and those who reach beyond it are in the minority. "If you take away the ability to look at those personal factors, it's only going to aggravate the situation," she said. Wawzonek said one of the biggest misunderstandings is the legacy of residential schools stopped taking its toll on the aboriginal population when the last school closed down in 1996. "This is where the frustration of the non-aboriginal population comes from. They'll look at it and go, 'Why are we continuing to look at this? Can't we move past this?' I don't think the solution is that simple," she said. "These communities were broken apart, so the ability to parent, the ability to have a family, the ability to have a loving and structured home was lost to a lot of families in a lot of these communities, and that is inevitably going to bring people in conflict with the justice system. I don't know that we're reaching the crest of it yet. I hope we are, but I don't think so."
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