Black Community in the Canadian Criminal Justice System

Black Community in the Canadian Criminal Justice System
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Black Community in the Canadian Criminal Justice System
Issues regarding minority groups are gaining more attention than never before. The aspect of race tends to influence the dynamics of the Canadian criminal justice system for a considerable time. The data related to the handling of Canadian citizens based on race have been suppressed, but there is enough reason to believe that there is racialization in the criminal justice system where the minorities receive far worse treatment than their dominant counterparts. This paper will discuss the Canadian black community, which is a perfect example of a minority race, and also explores how they are racially profiled and discriminated against within the criminal justice system in terms of the courts and correctional facilities.
Canada is one of the globe’s most known for immigrant-receiving nations and has received immense international praise due to its official policies regarding multiculturalism, diversity, and inclusion. However, over the recent past, racial bias regarding police stop and searches, and racialized correctional centers, practices, especially on the minority populace like black communities in Canada, have elicited strong criticism and concerns. (Cao, 2011; Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011).
Despite limited data, the police bias regarding the black communities has led to racialized incarceration, which is evidenced by relatively high numbers of blacks in prisons across Canada (Khenti (2014). Khenti’s findings show that black inmates account for 9% of the federal prison population, keeping in mind that the black community makes up paltry 2.5 % of the overall population. To press the point, the predominantly white population, alongside Asian Canadians, has declining figures in the prison system over the past decade, and black Canadians have incarceration rates in federal prisons, which are of 3.4 times their proportion in the general population (Khenti, 2014).
The Canadian criminal and justice system does not collect and report data on race, but the main option may involve looking at incarceration data. Correctional data does not include race, but it appears that minorities are disproportionately represented in the federal Penitentiaries (Reasons et al., 2016). For example, blacks Canadians who are about two percent of the Canadian population contribute to approximately six percent of federally incarcerated individuals. Furthermore, study findings show that black Canadian offenders were overrepresented among the homicide offenders in some urban regions, e.g., Toronto (Reasons et al., 2016).
Racial bias is a critical challenge in Canadian courts. More often, disparities tend to occur at pre-trial stages where the minorities may lack the financial strength to secure legal counsel, which affect the outcome of the pre-trial stage (Reasons et al., 2016). For example, the accused individuals from a minority race, e.g., Canadian blacks, have more likelihood to be denied bail and be held in pre-trial custody than their white counterparts (Reasons et al., 2016). The language barrier is an overarching problem for minority communities in the court process. The accused persons, who are detained pre-trial, have more probability of being convicted and longer custodial sentences: this leads to a higher number of lacks within the pipes of the correctional system (Reasons et al., 2016).
Unlike other nations like the U.S and Great Britain, a thorough examination of racial bias within the realm of the Canadian criminal justice system is an uphill task, due to constricted and limited accessibility to all-race crime data (Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011). Wortley & Owusu-Bempah (2011) observed that it is not only race-related statistics on crime that are ban but also the processing of all information of racial minorities via the criminal justice system. Due to insufficient data, investigators have often relied on qualitative studies to examine racial issues (Wortley & Owusu-Bempah, 2011). Racialization is a systematic process that can determine criminal justice outcomes, and it is evidenced by police stops and searches, amongst others, based on physical features, skin color, or other characteristics that form the basis for stereotyping. Wortley & Owusu-Bempah's (2011) findings showed that blacks were more predisposed to police searches and stops than whites or Asians. The black identity is a center of attraction of police to conduct street interrogation, and young black males are often the victim of police bias (Khenti, 2014). There are also exceptional cases regarding racial profiling: one notable discovery is that not all minorities are victims...