Savannah Allen
April 20, 2021
Racialized groups in Canada are disproportionately incarcerated and access to education for these individuals is extremely limited.
Since the tragic murder of George Floyd strengthened support for racialized communities in Canada, the ongoing racism pandemic has received increased media attention. Among the systemic issues being brought to light is the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on racialized communities and the fight against anti-Black racism in Canadian schools. Yet, the inequitable education system in place for Canadian prisoners has received little attention in mainstream media despite its impact on racialized communities.
There is an abundance of benefits stemming from prison education. For example, the relationship between level of education and one’s likelihood of recidivism—whether defined as re-arrest, re-conviction, or reincarceration—is well established. However, two-thirds of prisoners in Canada do not have a high school diploma and education remains highly inaccessible for inmates. The inconsistencies in this system and the lack of attention it receives highlights how Canada’s prison education system is an extension of the racism pandemic.
WHO IS MOST AFFECTED?
The United States is often targeted in conversations about minorities’ overrepresentation in prisons, but Canada’s system is similar; Black people are overrepresented by more than 300% in relation to their general population, and Indigenous peoples by approximately 500%. Subgroups of these communities experience exacerbated hardships, including Indigenous women, who consist of less than 4% of the country’s general population but make up 42% of women incarcerated at the federal level. Similarly, Indigenous peoples living in prairie provinces (i.e., Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta) represent over half of their provincial prison populations,
While publicly addressing the pattern of Indigenous overrepresentation in Canadian prisons, the Correctional Investigator of Canada, Dr. Ivan Zinger, stated, “the Indigenization of Canada’s prison population is nothing short of a national travesty” and referred to it as “one of Canada’s most persistent and pressing human rights issues”.
Prisoners are among the most poorly educated groups in Canada, with more than 60% of inmates only having a formal education up to the grade 8 level. Given the Indigenization of the prison population, as well as the fact that Black Canadians are the fastest growing demographic in federal prisons, the issue of inaccessible prison education increasingly and inordinately affects racialized groups.
OVERREPRESENTATION & THE RACISM PANDEMIC
It is important to understand the causes of the overrepresentation of racialized groups in Canadian prisons given that it is a reflection of Canadian society. As Howard Sapers, the former Correctional Investigator of Canada stated, “Prison has always shone a spotlight on the problems and inequalities of the larger society in which it functions”. Structural racism, or the large-scale systems, institutions, and ideologies that serve to exacerbate racial inequities, are reinforcing the issue of the overrepresentation of racialized groups in prisons.
Canada’s Department of Justice identifies that systemic discrimination is evident throughout every stage of the criminal justice system, starting with policing. Indigenous communities, for example, are both under-policed and over-policed. They appear in the system at disproportionate rates and are arrested and charged more frequently because their communities are aggressively policed. Yet, they are under-policed in terms of their rights being violated with little response from law enforcement. Similarly, Black people “bear a disproportionate burden of law enforcement”, states the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC), facing higher charge and arrest rates than other demographics. These issues are found to arise in areas where police have underdeveloped communication abilities in diverse situations and when they have yet to address personal biases and prejudices.
Beyond over policing and racial profiling, poorly developed government policies directly impact Indigenous and other racialized communities. In turn, they experience insufficient funding for programming (e.g., food support), higher poverty rates, and other social issues that lead to racially imbalanced prison populations.
BARRIERS TO EDUCATION
Now we know who is most affected by inaccessible prison education and why racialized people are overrepresented in the prison system, but what are the barriers to prison education?
One issue pertaining to the barriers to education for incarcerated Canadians is the lack of consensus regarding the relationship between recidivism and prison education. Austin (2005) argues against the effectiveness of prison education programs with the defense that the majority of prisoners are “unable or unwilling to participate in these or any other treatment programs”. Meanwhile, inmates have referred to prison education programs as being “the only redeeming experience in an otherwise cruel environment” and have eagerly used education to improve the trajectory of their lives, as seen in studies of the HOPE Bridge Program. Likely stemming from this conflicting information, researchers are calling for qualitative data that incorporates prisoners’ voices.
The lack of consensus regarding the importance of prison education is furthered by the fact that Correctional Services Canada considers the relationship between recidivism and level of education to be “controversial”. This viewpoint does not align with the vast number of studies showing a positive correlation between the two, demonstrating how prison education is not taken seriously in Canada—an issue that has been exacerbated in the context of the pandemic.
The second aspect of this issue is that educational programming is not legally mandated in Ontario’s correctional institutions, meaning prisoners could miss out on the opportunity to pursue education depending on their province.
If prisoners do have educational programming within their institution, the barriers to participation can be immense. Walls to Bridges, for example, provides for-credit programming in correctional settings, but course offerings and access to their programming is limited. This is a common occurrence, with education programs consistently having long waiting lists and frequent class cancellations, and merely one computer available for every 63 inmates, on average. These occurrences are inevitable given that education receives a miniscule amount of funding, with only 1% of the Correctional Service budget allocated for prisoners’ education. In addition to these barriers, Black and Indigenous prisoners are disproportionately at risk of not receiving mental healthcare services that they are in urgent need of, preventing them from prioritizing education while incarcerated.
Finally, once successfully enrolled in a prison education program, a new set of issues arise. This includes the inconsistent preparedness of prison educators. These teachers can experience “culture shock, skills or knowledge gaps, and philosophical dilemmas” and the funding simply is not there to prepare them in this way. Additionally, resources supporting quality prison education are scarce; in addition to minimal computer availability, these machines are often offline or functioning without adequate internet access. This leaves prisoners with outdated study materials and counteracts their educational success.
We know that barriers exist at each level of prison education—from program development to enrollment in programming—particularly for racialized prisoners.
POST-RELEASE IMPACTS
The post-release impacts of Canada’s prison education system emphasize why it is an extension of the racism pandemic.
While imprisoned, inmates likely only had access to a high school level education or lower. Correctional Service Canada identifies Adult Basic Education (ABE) programming as their priority in terms of prison education, with grades one to twelve (or equivalent) being the focus. This allows prisoners to earn a secondary school diploma. While providing these levels of education is incredibly important, Canada is very behind compared to other jurisdictions in terms of providing prisoners with postsecondary education opportunities. This is problematic as having a criminal record can make furthering one’s education challenging, especially because many postsecondary institutions in Canada include criminal background checks as part of their candidate selection process.
Given the racial disparities in Canada’s prison population, failure to provide inmates with postsecondary education means failure to educate large amounts of Canada’s racialized populations beyond the most basic level. In his study on mass incarceration, Larson (2015) found that those leaving prison with an associate’s degree were more likely to end their family’s generational cycle of incarceration, in addition to improving their socioeconomic status by supporting their family in a legal and legitimate manner. In other words, the lack of postsecondary education in prisons makes it so imprisonment remains a pattern among racialized communities and they continue to be disproportionately represented.
Furthermore, offering limited access to education beyond the high school level leaves prisoners with few employment opportunities after being released. A study showed that 75% of people assessed upon entering the prison system were found to have significant difficulties acquiring employment, with one reason being the relationship between criminal behaviour and level of education. Solely providing up to a high school level education neglects this issue given that employment rates in Canada coincide with level of education and stable, high quality work is more difficult to find for those with only a high school education.
Post-release, prisoners face difficulty furthering their education and finding employment as a result of their education system. This makes it so racialized communities struggle to improve their quality of life and remain out of the prison system, exemplifying the ongoing impacts of Canada’s racism pandemic.
MOVING FORWARD AND IMPROVING ACCESSIBILITY
Systemic change is no easy feat. Removing barriers and improving access to prison education will be time consuming and requires a consensus among governing bodies regarding its importance. However, change is possible and extremely realistic.
Improving accessibility can be done in several ways. One option is to involve Canadian postsecondary institutions. Given the disproportionate number of men and women of colour in prisons, the director of the Prison Reentry Institute argues that a commitment to inclusion and diversity is not evident in colleges and universities if they do not offer sufficient prison education programs. In other words, strengthening partnerships between these institutions benefits both parties. On a larger scale, another option is to follow the lead of more progressive provinces who recognize the profound racism within the prison system. Nova Scotia, for example, is depopulating their carceral facilities, while Ontario invests in expansion. Decreasing the number of inmates not only reduces the number of racialized Canadians in prison but makes reallocating funds to education more feasible.
We know racialized groups are disproportionately incarcerated and that limited access to education is a reflection of Canada’s racism pandemic, but when will the issue get the attention it deserves?
#Race #RacismPandemic #Canada #Prisons #PrisonEducation #EquityinEducation
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Education in Times of Crises (EDU 7133) 