Introduction

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Overview of the Engagement Process

Justice Canada is developing Canada’s Black Justice Strategy (CBJS) to address anti-Black racism, systemic discrimination, and the overrepresentation of Black people in the justice system. The goal of CBJS is to work towards ensuring Black people are treated equally under the law. As part of this strategy, Black communities across Canada were consulted through a variety of virtual and in-person methods. This report is a summary of the experiences, perceptions, and recommendations put forth by over 1,670 people in Canada across the five pillars of CBJS: Social Determinants of Justice, Policing, Courts, Corrections, and Community Re-entry and Reintegration. Those who contributed often had to relive trauma in order to participate. Despite this, they shared their stories, perceptions, and recommendations with the expectation that their contributions will help create meaningful change and not result only in yet another report about how systemic racism harms Black communities. The overwhelming majority of participants in the engagements and consultations were Black, and participants were incredibly diverse in terms of their experiences and relationship to the justice system.

In addition to the online survey developed and released by Justice Canada, community engagements were held by organizations working with Black people in the community and in custody. The organizations contracted to engage with members of Black communities across Canada are: Black Advocacy Coalition (BACUpNorth), Issamba Center, African Canadian Civic Engagement Council, Truly Alive Youth and Family Foundation Inc., The Hood Fams, Jaku Konbit, Network for the Advancement of Black Communities, Think 2wice, Clinique juridique de Saint-Michel, DESTA Black Community Network, African Nova Scotian Justice Institute, and Black Lives Matter NB. In order to reach Black people across their respective provinces and territories, many of the organizations listed above worked alongside other Black-serving organizations in a collaborative fashion. A comprehensive range of in-person and virtual engagement methods was employed, including interviews, community workshops, focus groups, stakeholder meetings, community conversations, consultation sessions, roundtables, submissions via email, and surveys. The diverse stakeholders engaged include Black youth, Black community members, Black community Elders and knowledge keepers from African, Caribbean, and Black communities, advocates for individuals involved in the criminal justice system, formerly incarcerated Black individuals, currently incarcerated Black individuals, individuals with lived experience with the criminal justice system, family members/loved ones of individuals involved in the criminal justice system, victims/survivors of crime, family members/loved ones of victims/survivors, Black community-led and serving organizations, government officials, and individuals working in the criminal justice system or a related field.

Limitations

1. Community partners who contributed site reports were grateful to contribute to CBJS. Nevertheless, many of the authors of the site reports noted feeling very rushed by the process. They felt that time constraints for conducting community engagement and consultation sessions and authoring reports lessened the scope of their work and limited who could be included. Some were unable to include all documents because they were not translated in time, others could not hire translators to be at events. They noted a desire to talk to people across different areas of their respective provinces and territories to reach more rural areas. While some were able to do this, many were not because the community partners could not set up engagement sessions within the limited time frame. In the future, engagements like these should be well-planned to grant enough time to complete the work in a comprehensive way, with clear directives and structure as to what each site is expected to do. Several community partners also noted that they would need more funding to carry out similar initiatives in the future.
2. There were very few instances where participants spoke about incarcerated Black women or women with interactions with the justice system. Overall, gender was not clearly identified across participants. This significantly limited the capacity for gender-based analysis.
3. Some site reports did not include any excerpts from community members or other participants. While their findings on experiences, perceptions, and recommendations are included here, there is little in their own words. Overall, the number of excerpts from different geographical regions is an indicator of how many excerpts were included in the site reports, not an indicator of support for ideas or the prevalence of perceptions or experiences.
4. While not a limitation, it is worth noting that there was an incredible level of consistency across the experiences participants had throughout the country. As such, this summary report does not address regional differences.
5. Most site reports did not rank the priority of recommendations proposed. This makes sense given the variation in consultation methods and community engagements. We have identified organizational support for each recommendation through tables located in respective recommendation sections. However, some site reports did not include sections for all 5 pillars. This suggests that we should not assume that a lack of organizational support (as indicated in tables) is a true lack of organizational support for a recommendation.

Brief Summary of Findings

We found that participants experienced considerable, pervasive, and interconnected inequity across all five pillars. They perceived social institutions across Canada as oppressive and asserted that anti-Black racism is deeply embedded in institutional policies, practices, and priorities. Participants called for long-lasting, sustainable, and widespread change to address these inequities. They highlighted the need to prevent and intervene in pathways into crime and contact with the justice system by increasing opportunities for Black people and developing better training, policies, and legislation across institutions and social actors involved in the social determinants of justice: income/employment, education, housing, mental health/physical health, child welfare, and immigration. Across policing, courts, corrections, and reintegration, participants advocated for expansive and comprehensive changes. Specifically, they called for expanding restorative justice and developing innovative anti-racist approaches to address institutional cultures and ensure outcomes are equitable. They recommended training, increasing Black representation in the justice system, increasing supports and opportunities for Black people who are involved in the justice system and those who work in the system, increasing oversight/accountability, implementing clear accountability measures and standards, and reviewing and amending policies, practices, and legal frameworks that are discriminatory or have disproportionately led to inequitable outcomes for Black people. They called for transparent, respectful, and culturally informed data collection and dissemination to track progress made across the five pillars. Participants stressed the need to sustainably fund, support, and maintain Black-led organizations that serve Black communities. They expressed hope that the evidence presented here will be used to create and maintain a fair, equitable, responsive, responsible, and truly rehabilitative justice system.

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