Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise with question period and my questions will be directed to the Minister of Justice, similarly as my colleague from Inuvik Boot Lake. In my Member’s statement, and again similar to Mr. Moses, our Member’s statements really talked about how we feel disgusted with the national rates of Aboriginal people. They’re not reflective of what’s considered fair and it certainly is a shocking or glaring reality which must stop. My first question to the Minister of Justice is: In the Northwest Territories we have a number of correctional institutions, would the Minister be able to speak to the percentages of Aboriginal versus non-Aboriginal inmate populations?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The report that the Members are talking about today is actually a report on federal facilities only. It does not address territorial facilities. Remembering that territorial correctional facilities, as opposed to federal jails, are for Northerners who have been sentenced to two years less a day for different levels of crimes. Aboriginal programming is strong in our territorial facilities and on average, to the Member’s question, the population of Aboriginal individuals in our facilities is about 88 percent of the total count.
Because we’re not allowed to ask the Minister’s opinion if 88 percent is fair, reasonable, or just disgusting, what I will ask is: What work has the Department of Justice done to find out what the root cause of this is and, furthermore, what are they able to do to help bring what one may describe as a reasonable balance in the sense of representation? Because I would say that 88 percent of our population representing the jails being solely Aboriginal people is not reasonable.
In Mr. Moses’ first question he indicated that poverty is a real issue here in the Northwest Territories and poverty has a direct result on crime. We know that poverty is an issue. We know that alcoholism is an issue. We know substance abuse is an issue. This government is doing progressive work to try and deal with those things. One of those things that we’re doing is an Anti-Poverty Strategy, which Mr. Moses talked about. We’re going to continue to do those things as a government and if we can reduce some of these root causes, we should see a reduction in the number of people that are entering our facilities.
At the same time we are doing a number of things. Diversions at the RCMP level, at the front end over the last number of years, have really plummeted and we’ve been working with the RCMP to get that number of diversions at the front end up. We’re also looking at alternative courts. We’re looking at a wellness court or some other model, as supported by MLAs when we get to that point, to help address some of those individuals as they’re coming into the system to keep them out of our jails.
Within our facilities we have a significant number of programs, that I mentioned earlier today, to help people rehabilitate so that they don’t reoffend. A lot of work is required to change some of these root causes and as a government we’re starting to make progress there.
I appreciate the answer from the Minister because I was going to ask about diversion techniques. Has the department studied the diversion techniques? As I understand it, diversion techniques are sometimes necessary for the potential person who has been arrested and charged with a crime, to actually go and appear before a court to get a direction rather than maybe a sentence. That’s the type of thing I’m saying, that in some cases it probably makes more sense. Has the Department of Justice considered and studied things like rehabilitation, based on proper direction and diversion techniques?
Diversions can happen at many different levels. We have front-line diversions that are actually being conducted by the RCMP. As I’ve indicated previously, our numbers here in the Territories have dropped significantly since 2003, but in the last year and a half or two years we’ve seen a sharp spike, which I think what everybody wants to see is more front-end work done on that end. We’re also doing diversions with our community justice committees depending on different levels of crime where youth, as an example, are engaging with the community justice committees to find alternatives to sentencing which are also rehabilitative. So there’s a large range of diversions, including if we move forward with alternative courts. It’s another form of diversion. We’ve done a lot of work around diversions, exploring options and opportunities, we looked at what other jurisdictions are doing, and we’re trying to find ways to help people rehabilitate and stay out of the system.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Has the department studied diversion techniques in the sense of their success rates? What I’m talking about is how people may reoffend. In other words, if we’ve given people an opportunity to not go to jail, which in certain circumstances makes complete sense. In other cases, they need to go to jail because of the balance of what they’ve been charged and found guilty of. Has the department found any diversion techniques that make sense? Because if our present population, on average, is 88 percent, that tells me it’s significantly high, and I’m trying to understand how this department is working to get this number down and to be reflective, truly, of what’s considered reasonable and representative of the population, not 88 percent, which is significantly high.
As I’ve indicated earlier, diversion is just one tool in our arsenal, and it is proving to be effective in many ways. We’ve got statistics from other jurisdictions that have done some analysis on recidivism and they’re seeing positive responses there. As far as what we have as an actual analysis of diversion only, I don’t have that information, but I will commit to looking at the department getting some information on recidivism with respect to diversions that we’ve done.
But I have to say, once again, we have to deal with the root causes of crime in the Northwest Territories, and as I indicated earlier in my Ministerial statement, poverty is truly an issue here in the Northwest Territories that is driving crime rates. We need to work as an Assembly, and as all people in the Northwest Territories, to battle and combat poverty, which means we have to find jobs, we have to deal with housing, we have to deal with health, we have to deal with mental health and addictions. We, as a government, both sides of this House, are doing that work, and we need to continue to do that work to help reduce crime rates here in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
