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377COVID-19
in Canadian Prisons: Policies, Practices and Concerns
Moreover, there may be concerns arising from how prison-
ers’ rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the Charter) and
human rights statutes are being upheld during the pandemic.55 First,
as mentioned, incarcerated individuals often belong to communities
impacted by social inequality and thus are already at a higher risk
and in need of enhanced protection during a pandemic. Not only
does state custody not offer that protection, but it heightens the risks
to their health and lives. In the words of Professor Anthony Doob, a
leading Canadian criminologist and statistician, “We currently have a
situation, then, that suggests quite strongly that being in a CSC peni-
tentiary has the effect of putting a prisoner at a much higher risk of a
very serious disease with a non-trivial mortality rate.”56
Second, the insufficient prison responses to the pandemic have,
percentage-wise, disproportionately impacted women57 and individ-
uals with underlying health conditions. Third, Indigenous people are
overrepresented in prisons, as they make up over 30% of federally
incarcerated people.58 Thus, the pandemic disproportionately affects
Indigenous incarcerated individuals, especially Indigenous women.
In this context, as also exemplified by Aimée Craft, Deborah McGregor
and Jeffery Hewitt, this volume, Chapter A-2, and by Anne Levesque
& Sophie Thériault, in Chapter D-6 of this volume, the government’s
inaction is reminiscent of historic harms against Indigenous people
and communities, which can be considered another form of colonial
violence—something the Canadian criminal justice system has regu-
larly been accused of perpetuating.59 Equality issues (under s. 15 of
55. On the need for human rights oversight of pandemic responses generally, and
for prisons specifically, see “Canada’s COVID-19 Response Needs Human
Rights Oversight, says Amnesty International” (March 25, 2020), online: AmnestyÂ
International <perma.cc/RK94-2UND>; Canada, Office of the Correctional
Investigator, supra note 36.
56. Anthony Doob, supra note 33, at 10.
57. Ibid.
58. Office of the Correctional Investigator, supra note 11.
59. See e.g. Elspeth Kaiser-Derrick, Implicating the System: Judicial Discourses inÂ
the Sentencing of Indigenous Women, (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press,
2019); Gillian Balfour, “Do Law Reforms Matter? Exploring the Victimization-
Criminalization Continuum in the Sentencing of Aboriginal Women in Canada”
(2013) 19:1 Int Rev Vict 85; Kent Roach, Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice,
(Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019); David Milward,
“Locking up Those Dangerous Indians for Good: An Examination of Canadian
Dangerous Offender Legislation as Applied to Aboriginal Persons” (2013) 51:3
Alta Law Rev 619.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Title
- VULNERABLE
- Subtitle
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Authors
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Publisher
- Ottawa Press
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Size
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Pages
- 648
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- International