Cost of Incarceration
The Cost of Incarceration
According to Statistics Canada, 2015/2016 Adult Correctional Services operating expenditures totalled over $4.6 billion. -> $128 per person of the Canadian population
In 2016/2016, it costs an average of $116, 000 to maintain an offender in a Correctional Services Centre Institution, whereas the cost to maintain an individual in the community was $31,000.
For female prisoners specifically, the cost of imprisoning a woman in a Federal Institution is estimated by Correction to average $175,000 per year. This can be much higher at $250, 000 for woman kept in the most isolated and segregated conditions of confinement such as the segregated maximum security units.
Women with mental health issues, especially those who self-harm, often have great difficulty adjusting to prison and are consequently more likely to be kept in the most isolated and segregated living conditions.
$250, 000 A Year! What are the Alternatives?
The average salary of a social working in Canada is $49,000 per year. The average living expenses for a single person in Canada is $47,000 per year. Therefore, you could have four full-time staff working with one woman 1:1, and provide all of her living expenses for the same cost as incarcerating her.
We can only imagine how much more the haem done to those we incarcerate cost us in the long run. Both financially and in terms of public safety.
The drastic negative effects on individuals who are incarcerated cause many individuals to leave prisons worse off than they were when they entered. Mental illness and substance abuse issues are only exacerbated when we hold people in solitary confinement, and then release them with little to no community supports.
“We have learned that a preoccupation with punishment can easily divert us from doing what actually makes us feel safer … but we have also learned – from the evidence and from our experience – that prison can harm those who would have been better diverted from the system in the first instance, and that overlong sentences can lose those who might otherwise have been successfully reintegrated into their communities as law abiding citizens”
Community based alternatives are cheaper, safer, smarter, kinder and more rehabilitative.
Mothers in Prison
Each Mother’s Day those lucky enough to have mothers cherish the time we spend with the most important women in our lives.
Unfortunately, that is not possible for those with children whose mothers are incarcerated.
At EFry of Northern Alberta, the majority of our incarcerated clients are mothers. 66% of women in custody are mothers – and only 5% of those children remain in their original homes while their mother is incarcerated
When a child’s mother is taken away from them and thrown into prison, her child(ren) may face residential disruptions, school changes, separation from siblings, foster care or periods of time spent with convenient, but inappropriate caretakers, feelings of shame, isolation and guilt, and even trauma from witnessing their mother’s arrest.
Lets explorer alternatives to incarceration that foster a healing environment, and help to build up and improve the well being of those traumatized women and their children. Let us stop the cycle of recidivism and historical trauma, through more cost effective and logical avenues.
The Over-Representation of Indigenous Women in Custody
According to the Correctional Service of Canada, the average Indigenous woman in prison is 27 years old with limited education and few employment opportunities. She is often unemployed or underemployed at the time of her arrest and the sole support of her two to three children. She has likely left home at a young age to escape violence. She may be forced to sell her body because she needs money and is unable to obtain a job. She is likely subjected to racism, stereotyping and discrimination because of her race. She is also likely to be involved in an abusive relationship. The abuse she escaped at home continues and in the social and economic struggle likewise continues.
Indigenous People in Institutions
Canada's Total Population (Stats Canada)
The victimization of sentenced Indigenous women in prison includes sexual and physical assault, (as well as) emotional and psychological abuse prior to their imprisonment. There are numerous historical abuses suffered as a result of residential and mission schools, foster care and adoption, the lack of equal access to training and employment, not to mention the societal oppression experienced generationally which results in internalized oppression.
The ongoing over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples, and in particular, Indigenous women, is a form of systemic discrimination within the Canadian Justice System, and is a part of the colonial legacy of Canada.
Stop the injustice now. Start with decarcerating Indigenous women and halt their victimization within Canadian prisons.ore rehabilitative.