Section 2. Methodology

To address the need of systematically collecting and publicly reporting data on how Black people experience criminal justice in Canada, Canada’s Black Justice Strategy Team engaged DESTA’s re-entry and advocacy program to undertake two community-led consultations, in-person and online, and a survey through which those within DESTA’s network and community members were asked to report on their experiences with Canada’s criminal justice system. Consultation participants were invited through DESTA’s KYR Campaign flier that was disseminated through the program’s social media platforms. All participants within DESTA’s Escorted Temporary Absence program as well as the individuals incarcerated in Quebec region prisons were invited to participate in the survey. The community consultation and survey intended to collect data on the varied and diverse experiences with Canada’s criminal justice system, and to identify gaps within policies, legislation, services, programs, community and data that might be impeding justice for Black individuals and communities.

2.1 Objective of the Study

The purpose of the community consultation sessions had three aims: (1) to engage Black communities that have experiences with the criminal justice system; (2) to validate and further update these experiences shared by the communities in which recommendations for change, support, and/or services might be provided; and (3) to use such shared experiences to inform the development of Canada’s Black Justice Strategy. The report will allow the Black Justice Strategy to further consolidate all experiences from community discussions to develop concrete implications of transformational change within policy, programs and future initiatives for Black communities in Canada.

2.2 Methodology Tools

The community-led consultation sessions were carried out through 1) DESTA’s KYR community roundtable discussions first in-person and then through an online platform via Zoom as part of a qualitative analysis; and 2) via an online and in-person survey to further identify and update gaps within policies, legislation, data, services, community support and other initiatives.

Consultation through Roundtable Discussion. To meet the aims of the community consultation, community members and individuals within DESTA’s network were invited to participate in a roundtable community discussion aimed at contextualizing and deepening the understanding of the Black experience with the criminal justice system. The two consultation sessions were moderated by the contracted lead researcher who has expert experience with Black community-led projects throughout Quebec. Participants were informed of the event through DESTA’s social media platforms and were required to register through Eventbrite to participate in the discussion. Prior to the session, participants were asked to provide their consent (see Appendix 1), allowing time to be informed of the event’s ground rules of mutual respect between facilitators and participants, the purpose of the event, and the confidentiality of their responses and their voluntary participation. Participants were also made aware of the mental health support counselor present at the event for their own safety. For the complete list of panel discussion questions, see Appendix 2.

Consultation through Survey. Concomitant with the two panel discussions addressing the experiences of Black Canadian groups with the criminal justice system, the survey developed by Justice Canada, in both English and French translations, (see Appendix 3) was used and disseminated to DESTA’s community partners and participants that were not able to engage in the community consultations. The survey dissemination was done by DESTA’s re-entry and advocacy team. For DESTA’s participants currently incarcerated and without access to the internet, DESTA’s re-entry and advocacy team members printed the online survey and disseminated the survey directly to individuals at partnering Quebec region prisons as well as during the participating inmates’ escorted temporary absences. Once completed, the surveys were collected and the data was input by the lead researcher into Microsoft Forms, a technical platform used to reliably handle large volumes of data. See Appendix 3 for the complete list of survey questions.

Format and duration. The participating individuals within the prisons and during their escorted temporary absence were given up to 3 hours to complete the printed-out surveys, with some extensions allowed due to delays in securing data from participants. Given the short time frame available for collecting and analyzing survey and consultation sessions, the survey was restricted to a data collection that can be analyzed through automated methods. Automated coding and quantitative analysis of survey responses were done via Microsoft forms, providing high-level insight. For nuanced and accurate analysis of themes, manual, human coding was used to investigate the trends observed in the roundtable community discussions. The goal was to reach at least 150 participants through in-person and virtual or other consultation methods and with various intersectionality and diversity backgrounds. To ensure the precise criteria to participate in the survey and consultations, mandatory demographic questions were asked prior to beginning.

Methodological limitations. Considering the majority of respondents to the survey were incarcerated individuals, the respondents are less likely to represent a wide and varied diversity of backgrounds that the study called for. In some cases, the experiences reported in the survey regarding policing, courts and legislation and corrections with regard to experience may reflect one another.