Unsettling Colonialism in the Canadian Criminal Justice System

Canada’s criminal justice system reinforces dominant relations of power and further entrenches the country in its colonial past. Through the mechanisms of surveillance, segregation, and containment, the criminal justice system ensures that Indigenous peoples remain in a state of economic deprivation, social isolation, and political subjection. By examining the ways in which the Canadian justice system continues to sanction overtly discriminatory and racist practices, the authors in this collection demonstrate clearly how historical patterns of privilege and domination are extended and reinforced.

About the Editors

Vicki Chartrand is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Bishop’s University. Josephine Savarese is an associate professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice at St. Thomas University.

Contributors: Jillian Baker, Gillian Balfour, James Delorme, Jeff Ewert, Paul Hachey, Charles Jamieson, Mark Jackson, El Jones, David B. MacDonald, Chevelle Malcolm, Clint Augustine McIntosh, Carmela Murdocca, Pamela Palmater, Justin Piché, Lorinda Riley, Viviane Saleh-Hanna, Jeff Shantz, Stands with the Wolves (Nolan Turcotte), Kevin Walby, Andrew Woolford.

Reviews

The chapters in this collection gesture towards a rehabilitative and abolitionist future, where Indigenous peoples and communities are respected. Scholars, students, and professionals working within criminal justice systems in settler states would do well to read this
collection closely, if nothing more than to provoke deeper thinking on their role and on the idea of justice and the function of the criminal system.”

Harry Hobbs, JACANZS

Table of Contents

1. Acknowledgements
2. Introduction
3. Human to Human: A Poem Written for Pamela George
   Chevelle Malcolm
4. Part I. Settler Colonialism and Canadian Criminal Justice in Context
   1. 1. Memoryscapes: Canadian Chattel Slavery, Gaslighting, and Carceral Phantom Pain
      Viviane Saleh-Hanna
   2. 2. The Destruction of Families: Canadian Indian Residential Schools and the Refamilialization of Indigenous Children
      Andrew Woolford
   3. 3. Walking on a Settler Road: Days in the Life of Colonialism
      Clint Augustine McIntosh
   4. 4. Colonial Mythmaking in Canadian Police Museums on the Prairies
      Kevin Walby and Justin Piché
   5. 5. Original Savages Stands with the Wolves (Nolan Turcotte)
5. Part II. The Colonial Violence of Criminal Justice Operations
   1. 6. “You’re Reminded of Who You Are in Canada, Real Quick”: Racial Gendered Violence and the Politics of Redress
      Carmela Murdocca
   2. 7. Clearing the Plains Continues: Settler Justice and the “Accidental” Murder of Colten Boushie
      David B. MacDonald
   3. 8. Killing in the Name Of: Police Killings of Indigenous People in Canada
      Jeff Shantz
   4. 9. Elders in Prison and Cycles of Abuse
      Paul Hachey
   5. 10. Gendered Genocide: The Overincarceration of Indigenous Women and Girls
      Pamela Palmater
6. Part III. The Bureaucratic Trappings of Colonial Justice
   1. 11. Moral Culpability and Addiction: Sentencing Decisions Two Decades After R. v. Gladue
      Gillian Balfour
   2. 12. Cookie-Cutter Corrections: The Appearance of Scientific Rigour, the Assumption of Homogeneity, and the Fallacy of Division
      Jeff Ewert
   3. 13. To Be Treated as Human: Federally Sentenced Women and the Struggle for Human Rights
      Kim Pate
   4. 14. Earth and Spirit: Corrections Is Not Another Word for Healing
      Charles Jamieson
   5. 15. Shit: A Poem Dedicated to All Incarcerated Sisters
      El Jones
   6. 16. Incompatible or Congruent? Can Indigenous and Western Legal Systems Work Together?
      Lorinda Riley
7. Part IV. Creative Resistances and Reimagining Settler-Colonial Justice
   1. 17. Countering the Legal Archive on the Death of Neil Stonechild: Analyzing David Garneau’s Evidence (2006) as an Aesthetic Archive
      Josephine Savarese
   2. 18. Ethics of Representation / Ethics and Representation: Dads Doin’ Time, Incarcerated Indigenous Writers, and the Public Gaze
      Jillian Baker
   3. 19. In the Name of the Native Brother and Sisterhood
      James Delorme
   4. 20. Spirit of the Stolen: MMIWG2S+ People and Indigenous Grassroots Organizing
      Vicki Chartrand
   5. 21. Critique’s Coloniality and Pluriversal Recognition: On the Care as the Ecological Ground of Justice
      Mark Jackson
8. Conclusion
9. List of Contributors

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