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B.C. top court broadens sentencing law aimed at reducing indigenous incarceration rates
Some additional background. In Canada, indigenous people have a lot of problems. They tend to be poor, especially if they live on reserves. Many of them have drug and alcohol abuse problems, and they commit a lot of crime, especially violent crime. There's a lot of teen pregnancy, and in general, many of them live what most people consider to be highly dysfunctional lives.
It has recently become accepted wisdom that this is definitely entirely due to their historical mistreatment, especially their attendance at residential schools, which were designed to forcibly assimilate indigenous children into Western culture. The evidence supporting this is weak.
I have a few questions about this and similar cases.
Why are prison sentences so low in Canada to begin with? You often hear cases where someone kills multiple people and they get sentenced to under ten years in prison. After accounting for credit for time served and parole, they're often only in prison for a few years. Is there evidence supporting this approach to reducing crime?
Is there any reason why the optimal sentences for indigenous convicts are lower than for non-indigenous convicts?
Does it really make sense to blame the offender's dysfunctional background on his indigenous ancestry?
Does it even make sense to blame his criminal behaviour on his dysfunctional background?
Why are crime rates among the indigenous increasing?
On one hand, dropping a 5 year sentence to 4 years isn't earth-shattering. Judges have, and often use, greater discretion in sentencing based on whether they had a good morning thusfar.
On the other hand, "same crime, different punishment" will only be tolerated so far. Especially if, after several years, the indiginous incarceration level remains flat & indigenous crime rate rises. (as I would expect, mostly due to early release of serial offenders, with a small reduced deterrent effect)
I would like to think it'll only be tolerated so far, but my guess is that indigenous crime rates will simply be obfuscated or the rise blamed on other factors. After all, the judge pointed to the "missing and murdered indigenous women" report, which fails to mention that more indigenous men are missing and murdered than indigenous women, and seems to be a surprising fact to the Canadians I know.
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