Four years ago, I was one of many who tried to raise the alarm in the media about a Canadian crisis. I called attention to the staggering statistic that 98 percent of girls in Saskatchewan youth jails were Indigenous, and upwards of 70 percent of inmates in Manitoba jails were Indigenous.
These are unacceptable rates by any measure. At the time, 43 percent of women in federal prisons were Indigenous.
Last week we learned that Canada has crossed a terrible threshold: 50 percent of all women in federal prisons are now Indigenous, despite Indigenous women making up only five percent of Canada’s female population.
