Here we go again

So, native women now comprise half the female population in Canadian prisons -- in spite of the fact they make up only four percent of the total Canadian population.  Four percent!  And this is presumably after a native "healing circle" has been convened in each case to try to play down the crime and mitigate the punishment -- the latter never quite equaling the former.  But even then, they're up to half.

And I won't even ask you to guess who's fault it all is because you know the answer.  Reading my blogs, you might surmise I am a misogynist -- and even more so when it comes to native women -- but we keep doing ourselves in and confirming the opinions of the real misogynists out there.  There seems to be no personal responsibility for behaviours when it comes to natives.  Correctional Services Investigator Ivan Zinger wholeheartedly agrees:

"It's just shocking and shameful for a country that has so many resources," he said about the native over-population in prisons.  I would have put it this way:

"It's just shocking and shameful for Indigenous people who are given so many resources by the people of Canada to have so many disproportionate females in prisons."  That's the truth. 

Rates are on the rise and will continue to be because, as former chief commissioner of the infamously biased MMIWG inquiry Marion Buller says, "The underlying factors we hear time and time again are poverty (Really? With the billions natives are given every year?), violence (by whom against whom?), generational trauma (a real fallacy) and dislocation (from where to where?).  Until these factors are properly addressed, we're going to see the numbers rise.  Governments (you and me) haven't funded restorative justice programs (Really? Yes we have and you now have your own courts to try cases outside of secular law and administer your own sentences).

Just as with the kinship program for native children in care, the above experiment has also failed.  I can't seem to understand why natives take no responsibility for their own actions and decisions?  It's not a lack of money because billions are handed over every year.  Frankly, that's the problem.  Money never solves anything on this file; it just acerbates the mess.  Every time you see or hear a native leader on TV, it's always "We need more resources (i.e., money) to right these wrongs."

"It just makes it really evident how it's a continuation of colonization (that go-to-bug-a-boo excuse). Every actor in the so-called justice system has to take responsibility for their role," wept Emilie Coyle, executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies.

When oh when are native leaders going to step up and shoulder their responsibilities?  That also goes for everyone else.