So much work to do’: Indigenous women vastly overrepresented in federal penitentiaries and provincial jails in Sask. – Regina Leader Post

Nov 14, 2023

National Vice-Chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples Kim Beaudin is calling for Indigenous involvement in oversight of the correctional system.

Eighty-eight per cent of women held in federal custody in Saskatchewan are Indigenous, according to new data.

Last week, federal correctional investigator Ivan Zinger released updated findings to his annual report dated June 30 showing the overall proportion of overrepresentation of Indigenous people in federal custody has increased to 32 per cent, or about 4,200 people.

The report further said half of all women in Canadian penitentiaries are Indigenous.

“Indeed, Canada’s correctional population is becoming disturbingly and unconscionably Indigenized,” Zinger, the top federal prison watchdog, wrote in the report.

Statistics from his office shows Indigenous women are overrepresented among female inmates who aren’t serving a community-based sentence.

Read More: https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatchewan/so-much-work-to-do-indigenous-women-vastly-overrepresented-in-federal-penitentiaries-and-provincial-jails-in-sask