Statistics on aboriginal incarceration in Saskatchewan present strong odds that aboriginal youth have a better chance of ending up in jail than graduating from high school.
The aboriginal graduation rate is about 40 per cent, while aboriginals make up 80 per cent of the youth population in jails.
Those are just some of the latest numbers on First Nations people in prison.
Researchers and social justice experts say the figures clearly indicate a new approach is needed and old stereotypes need to be broken.
Aboriginals make up about 15 per cent of Saskatchewan’s population, yet they occupy about 90 per cent of the cells in federal, provincial, youth, and female correctional centres.
An expert panel did an analysis during a public discussion at the University of Regina on Tuesday night.
There are a number of ways to look at the problem, but Robert Henry, University of Saskatchewan professor of Indigenous studies and aboriginal gang expert, says most people take the wrong view.
“So we can start looking at this in a couple of different ways. One, aboriginal peoples are inherently evil, that they are genetically made to commit crime. We can look at it that way which has been the contention since colonization: that they are savages, that they should be controlled through means until they learn how to be part of our society,” he said.
Henry said he believes aboriginals are the victim of targeted oppression by both police and justice officials. He says because they are marginalized and often involved in crimes of opportunity and desperation, they are singled out and targeted.
In Henry’s view, youth gang members he has worked with often do what people expect them to do.
“They didn’t feel that they belonged, they were bullied in school,” he said. “One gang member in my research told me, ‘I was nothing but a dirty Indian so that’s what I wanted to be: the best Indian.’ And that was to be violent.”
Henry says a more enlightened approach is needed, one that focuses on community care and treatment, not incarceration.
Over the last 10 years, federal prison populations have increased by about 17 per cent, while the aboriginal incarceration rate went up by 47 per cent. Of those in Saskatchewan’s provincial jails, 92 per cent of people have addiction issues, and about 60 per cent don’t have a high school education.