Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny199r
Yeah, absolutely pointless comparison. In order to make jail a punishment, it has to be a worse place than where people come from. Our jails are full of indigenous people. In some provinces, 90%. The places that they come from are unimaginable to many Canadians.
I’ve asked so many teenage clients in jail before, how is it? “Great, they give us lots of food!”, “no one tries to crawl into bed with me like when there are adult drinking parties at my house”, “I like school here”.
The other aspect some people are are confused about is “denunciation and deterrence”. The idea that courts need to send a message to others to make them think twice before committed a crime due to the punishment. This is a stupid idea. I don’t have a single client who considers the length of a potential sentence before doing something. 98% of the time there are intoxicated due to some underlying trauma and just reacts. There are no professional bank robbers like in movies.
Finally, let’s look at how a jail sentence can have little effect on someone’s life.
Guy from a reserve gets 6 months jail. He lives in Band housing, so he won’t lose his house. The other 14 people who live there will still be living there when he’s gone. There’s no jobs on his reserve, so he didn’t lose his job. A criminal record has no effect, he’s too poor to ever travel to the USA. He sees lots of his cousins and people he knows from his Rez while in jail, so there’s no social stigma for being in, it’s absolutely normalized. A nurse and a doctor give him a checkup when he’s in there and he finally gets medication/surgery for that health problem that has hurt for 5 years. He gets to eat 3 times a day. Quality, healthy food. 3 times!!!!!! Back home 2 litres of milk cost $25. Think about that. He shares a cell with 2 other people. Wow! His crappy bungalow at home, people sleep in a day shift and a night shift on mattresses in the corners.
The biggest problem people don’t understand in Canada is that we need to elevate first nation’s peoples standard of living to something that matches the average Canadian’s, not a 3rd world country. I’ve had clients die from tuberculosis! In the 21st century!!!
Do you know any white people that have died of tuberculosis lately? I’m guessing not.
The government, and society at large (they don’t pay taxes! they’re lazy! they just drink!) has no interest in doing that. They would much rather continue to pay for a horrendously expensive Justice/prison system. That’s how much this country hates brown people.
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Great post. I would comment that in the 21st century I don't think "punishment" is or should be the point of sentencing. Getting people food, medical care, emotional healing, job skills, etc is absolutely the way we need to be going to set them up for success in the future. Obviously it would be better to have those supports in the community.
Ultimately society needs to fix the underlying issues. I don't know how to do that (if it was easy it would be done already) although I think some sort of property rights for band housing would be a good place to start.
There are no jobs on reserves because there are no businesses, and I don't believe that there are no native people with entrepreneurial drive and work ethic. But aside from discrimination, there isn't much ability for them to access capital. When I started my business I used my HELOC for start up funds, which is what the vast majority of new business owners do. But that isn't possible with reserve housing, which makes capital formation much harder. And that's aside from the "tragedy of the commons" issues with cooperative housing Cliff mentioned.
That would be far from a panacea (because someone with FASD and a significant history of abuse isn't a good candidate to start a business no matter what race they are) but I think it would help.