I find specious the argument that aboriginal violent offenders, unlike non-aboriginal perpetrators, should be spared imprisonment if the presiding judge can find any reason to do so.
Yes, aboriginal peoples are over-represented in prison populations, but they’re also committing a disproportionately large number of brutal assaults, such as that against TransLink bus-driver Charles Dixon.
Society should identify and treat potentially violent aboriginal offenders to prevent them from committing violent acts in the first place, and that way lower the over-representation of aboriginal incarceration.
However noble it may be to spare them from prison because of past, and even some present, social injustices European colonization has forced upon aboriginal peoples, true contemporary justice must be blind – even when dealing with Canada’s first peoples.
Frank G. Sterle, Jr.
