Virus intensifies inhumane prison conditions
System perpetuates a cycle of inequity and violence, writes Karrie Auger.
The state of our collective mental health has been the centre of many conversations since the start of the COVID -19 pandemic. It is no surprise, given the immense changes in the structure of our lives, that most people have felt some level of increased mental health challenges. The Mental Health Research Canada 4th National Report has indicated that anxiety and depression are at their highest since the pandemic started, reporting that four times the number of Canadians are experiencing high anxiety levels, and the rates of depression have more than doubled since the start of the pandemic.
Historically, Indigenous peoples experience a much higher rate of mental health challenges. Stats Canada reports that the discrepancies between Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples and health have long been reported, noting that we continue to see the effects of intergenerational trauma from Indian Residential Schools in Indigenous communities.
The report notes that food and job insecurity, poverty, and unemployment all play a role in mental health challenges that Indigenous peoples continue to face.
In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) outlined the ongoing health disparities that Indigenous peoples continue to experience as a result of colonization, and laid out 94 calls to action to redress the harms caused by this system. The report indicated that, for many Indigenous people, there was a direct path from residential school to prison, many seeing the prison system as a continuation of the Indian Residential School System.
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health states that prisoners are four to seven times more likely to suffer from a mental illness. More importantly, they note that poverty, abuse, growing up in broken homes, and addictions are determining factors in mental health challenges.
For Indigenous people, who make up the largest portion of those who are incarcerated in Canada, colonialism has not only created the conditions that lead to their criminalization through the Indian Residential School system, but continues to maintain the cycle of punishment and containment of Indigenous peoples through the penal system.
Claims by Correctional Service Canada (CSC) that prisons include culturally relevant and responsive supports and programming, and the RCMP claiming reconciliation efforts, have done little to affect the criminalization of Indigenous peoples, as we have continued to see an increase in the mass incarceration of Indigenous peoples from 2015, when the TRC report was released.
This increase indicates what many people are starting to realize, that the prison system does not protect and keep people safe.
Instead, it perpetuates a cycle of violence and inequity that has exacerbated the mental health challenges faced by Indigenous people, and indeed all those who have been incarcerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID -19 pandemic has intensified the already inhumane conditions inside prisons, with reports of prisoners being on strict lockdowns for almost entire days. Since the start of the pandemic, many prisoners have been forced to go without the support and connection of loved ones as almost all federal institutions continue to not allow any in-person visitations. The lockdowns, limited PPE, inability to social distance, inadequate nutrition, and no access to mental health supports have been at the centre of multiple prisoner hunger strikes across Canada.
Those of us on the outside who recognize the harms of the penal system are working together to end this cycle of violence for Indigenous peoples, and all those who experience the harms of this system.
There are individuals and communities across Canada who are actively working toward creating new systems of care. We are all committed to working toward a new kind of safety and accountability for all of our communities.