Executive summary

The Black community in Canada faces systemic racism and discrimination deeply embedded within every pillar of our criminal justice system. To shine a light on these injustices, a series of interviews were conducted with 280 participants: 245 Black and racialized prisoners at three federal prisons in Ontario, 15 Black young people with lived experience in the Justice System, and 20 professional community consultants within the same region. We conducted interviews in the following federal institutions: Beavercreek (Medium and Minimum sites), Warkworth, and Collins Bay institutions. Their first-hand experiences paint a sobering picture of the unfair treatment and inequality that has become normalized for Black people within the justice system but more specifically the federal penal system in Ontario.

Black participants described a community entrenched in hopelessness through poverty, violence, lack of opportunity, unresolved trauma/grief, with the self-perpetuating cycle of incarceration weighing heavily. The lack of prevention and intervention programming, over-policing, and racial profiling fill prisons with Black prisoners, who face further discrimination. Once incarcerated, racism persists. Black prisoners face inequality and unfair treatment across the board. They are disproportionately labelled as gang members, negatively impacting their incarceration from segregation to restrictions concerning employment, rate of pay to parole eligibility. Yet they lack relevant programs to remove this label, showing unequal treatment. They also face excessive use of force by guards, barriers to rehabilitative programs, ignored mental health needs, and unaddressed complaints. The parole process is also discriminatory, routinely denying eligible Black prisoners despite meeting requirements.

Safety and gun violence are serious issues for Black communities. However, core funding tends to be funnelled to police and other large, anchor agencies, rather than community-led grassroots organizations. This results in a lack of successful, trusted, culturally relevant programs that address the real issues young people face. Grassroots organizations struggle with project-based funding, limiting their impact. As police funding increases, so do Black arrests. Undermining the purpose of detention, there is a lack of rehabilitation programs that Black prisoners can identify with.

Prisoner participants recommended practical reforms that include, inter alia, changing the gang labelling process, mandatory anti-racism training for all staff, culturally relevant programs, external oversight and accountability mechanisms, an independent body to handle prisoner complaints, and ensuring Black perspectives directly inform policy changes.

While these measures will not solve problems overnight, the unacceptable status quo of systemic racism within corrections must change. Incarcerated Black individuals have valuable insights from living within the discriminatory system. Their voices must be amplified, experiences of racism validated, and recommendations for reform implemented.

“Today, I am releasing an update of the Office’s 2013 ground-breaking investigation looking into the experiences of Black prisoners under federal custody. I am very disappointed to report that the same systemic concerns and barriers identified nearly a decade ago, including discrimination, stereotyping, racial bias and labeling of Black prisoners, remain as pervasive and persistent as before. In fact, the situation for Black people behind bars in Canada today is as bad, and, in some respects, worse than it was in 2013.”

Ivan Zinger November 1, 2022