Measuring correctional admissions of Aboriginal offenders in Canada: A relative inter-jurisdictional analysis

It is widely recognized that Aboriginal peoples are overrepresented in Canada’s criminal justice system. A review of recent statistics documenting the extent of overrepresentation in Canada’s sentenced custody population, prompted the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to call upon federal, provincial, and territorial governments to take action. In anticipation of advancement toward the Commission’s “Calls to Action”, it is important to have comprehensive baseline information to which progress may be measured against in the future. Aside from basic statistics that document over-incarceration, however, little research has explored patterns of representation among Aboriginal offenders in other segments of the correctional system. Nevertheless, this is an important area of study. Admissions to sentenced custody are commonly used to describe the overrepresentation problem but community-based sanctions such as the conditional sentence and probation have been viewed as positive alternatives to custody. The current study employs a variety of measurement techniques to document recent patterns of admissions among Aboriginal offenders to these three segments of provincial/territorial correctional systems. While conventional measures such as the count and percent are found to be useful for reporting on a single admission type, they are deemed to be less effective at comparing multiple admission types across jurisdictions. An alternative measurement technique proves more useful for this line of inquiry. Specifically, a relative measurement technique demonstrated that certain jurisdictions in Canada are disproportionately represented with respect to their use of custodial and community-based forms of correctional supervision among Aboriginal offenders. While Quebec was found to be relatively underrepresented in terms of its use of custody, it was also found to be overrepresented for its use of probation and conditional sentences. Conversely, Alberta was found to be overrepresented for its use of sentenced custody and underrepresented for community-based sanctions. Implications of these findings for future research and policy development are discussed.