Understanding the Complexity:    

         The Aboriginal perspective of youth crime in Canada is vastly different from the experiences of other minorities. When attempting to understand just how complex Aboriginal youth crime is, one must consider two main factors, one being their experiences with the European colonists, and the intergenerational trauma they have experienced, creating negative impacts, such as poverty that Aboriginal peoples unfortunately have to endure today. As a result of the difficult treatment of Aboriginal peoples throughout Canada’s history, when studying effective methods of deterring young Aboriginal people from crime, one must have an understanding of their history and realize that the motives behind the criminal acts of young Aboriginal offenders are different than the criminal acts done by individuals from other ethnic or racial backgrounds. Once these factors have been conceptualized, one could easily argue that placing the focus on healing and redeeming these individuals would be the most effective way of criminal rehabilitation, as opposed to punishment, such as incarceration. The Canadian government’s implementation of residential schools and segregation have had unprecedented effects on Indigenous people, and most of the criminal behaviour within their community is their expression of the traumatic experiences and victimization they have endured over time. However, having a full understanding of the complexity of juvenile Aboriginal youth would be impossible without analyzing the historical component of the First Nations people and the manner in which they were treated by the government.

Historical Context:

         Canada’s history regarding their treatment of the Indigenous peoples has been somewhat of a “black eye”, as seen in the aforementioned residential schools and segregation, as well as other attempts to erase Indigenous culture and the many broken promises to the Aboriginals by the government. Since the turn of the century however, the Canadian government has made attempts to help repair relations between the two parties, as Stephen Harper’s government has formally apologized for the residential schools that spanned over a one-hundred year period, as well as implementing the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, in which the government agreed to pay over $1.9 billion dollars to approximately 86 000 surviving indigenous peoples who were affected by these institutions. More recently, Justin Trudeau’s government has invested over $1.2 billion dollars over a three year span to ensure that indigenous children have access to mental health services, educational supports and medical equipment. Although these governments have made an attempt to restore relations, it will take much more awareness and activism to help mitigate hundreds of years of traumatic experiences for the First Nations peoples. An example of such activism is Orange Shirt Day, a national activist movement created to show recognition for the experiences of First Nations children in residential schools. Phyllis Webstad was a young six year old girl who was attending her first day of residential school in a brand new orange shirt, however once she arrived, the school officials quickly replaced her shirt with the school’s uniform, and the shirt was never to be seen again. September 30th was chosen as the date for Orange Shirt Day, as it coincided with the day that the busses would arrive at the indigenous communities and take the youth away to their new schools to be shamed and abused. By raising awareness and promoting accountability through actions like these, it can make reconciliation easier for the people who suffered through these atrocities, ultimately helping the conditions in which some First Nations peoples live in today. Within indigenous communities, issues such as suicide and substance abuse heavily contribute to the violence and crime within these neighbourhoods, and place the youth living there in bad situations that could lead to a life of crime and incarceration. Canadian society’s power structures have put Aboriginal youth in a disadvantaged position by marginalizing them throughout Canadian dominant culture’s history. As well, Aboriginal peoples have disproportionate unemployment rates when comparing theirs to other minorities, and indigenous youth are more likely to be living in a lone-parent household and have lower education levels, showing how the indigenous community is both marginalized and disadvantaged socioeconomically when compared to others. Another issue prevalent within their communities is victimization, as the data collected by the government shows high rates of Aboriginal adults, especially adult women being victimized as spousal abuse has unfortunately started to become more common. Indigenous victimization is also an issue for their youth, as they have been incarcerated at extremely high rates while only making up for a small percentage of the country’s population. When the youth are incarcerated, they are separated from their communities and are not granted any form of visitation, creating yet another traumatic experience for the Aboriginal peoples. The Canadian government has recognized that Aboriginals are overrepresented in terms of victimization and criminalization and have started to combat these high rates by encouraging more Aboriginal people to get involved in law enforcement in an attempt to minimize the fear of police officers in their communities, as well as providing insight on more effective methods of deterring the youth from committing crimes.

Role of Culture:

         As mentioned previously, First Nations youth incarceration rates are very high and the discrimination they suffer is a large factor in those rates being as high as they are. Aboriginal youth are more likely to be tried and charged as adults and having an open record. For most youth, in order to be released back into their communities, they must have responsible parents or guardians to monitor their behaviour, as well as either being enrolled in a school or being employed. This is so the juvenile youth are too busy with their education or profession to get re-involved with crime, minimizing their chances of reoffending. Some aboriginal youth don’t have some of these luxuries, and as a result are more at-risk of reoffending because of it. The courts have recognized this issue and as a result, have allowed special considerations to be given to Aboriginal peoples during sentencing, as seen in the Supreme Court’s ruling in R. v. Gladue in 1999. Gladue was charged with manslaughter and during her trial, the jury had decided when sentencing an individual from Aboriginal descent, the court must take into account the “unique systemic or background factors” that may have contributed to their breaking of the law. As a result of this Supreme Court decision, the government have since created a special court, named the “Gladue court”, for criminal cases involving Aboriginals to help respond to the systemic or background factors. As well, the government has included a provision in Section 8 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, mandating judges and juries to give “particular attention…to the circumstances of Indigenous young persons”. However, critics of the government and justice system argue that by implementing the Gladue courts and including Section 8 of the YCJA, the First Nations peoples are receiving preferential treatment, as justice should be blind to all races and backgrounds, and focus solely on the motives and actions of an individual. However, the marginalization of the Indigenous people and culture over time have truly created circumstances of injustice that no other ethnicity has had to deal with, and if not for the aforementioned implementations, there would never have been any change in lowering crime rates for both adults and the youth.

Restorative Justice:

            In Indigenous culture, they employ a justice system around a central idea that the harm caused as a result of a crime creates an obligation by the criminal to repair said harm. In today’s world, that idea is described as restorative justice, as offenders receiving this kind of rehabilitation don’t get incarcerated, but instead help fix the harm they have caused to their victim, the victim’s family and their community. Prior to restorative justice, once the offender had been charged and sentenced, the victim gets little to no healing, and doesn’t get a true apology for what has been committed against them, making it a very ineffective way to help restore the most wronged party in the case. The Canadian government has allowed for the country’s young offenders to partake in restorative justice since the adoption of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The YCJA offers the victim and their community the right of sentencing circles in the absence of sentencing hearings, in which the community decides as a whole what an appropriate sentence would be. Aboriginal youth offenders have access to a cultural discovery program during their restorative justice rehabilitation, which involves re-establishing the connection between the youth offender and the indigenous land, as they are sent out with elders and healers to do outdoor activities such as fishing and hunting in order to rekindle their spiritual connection to the culture. Another method of restorative justice offered to indigenous youth is the Community Holistic Circle Healing Program, or CHCH Hollow Water program. CHCH started off as a method of rehabilitating sex offenders by restoring them in the eyes of their family as well as their community, and to help foster reconciliation between victim and offender. This program started in the 1980’s and was overseen by RCMP officers. Due to the success of the program, it was adapted to help Aboriginal youth by adding elders to help the RCMP oversee their rehabilitation. By adding these restorative justice programs, the government succeeded in reconciling the offender with their community and victim and even saved hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not more) by not incarcerating these offenders.

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