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THOUGHTS ON THE CANADIAN PENAL SYSTEM’S BIAS TOWARDS NON-WHITE PRISONERS: CLASS VS RACE

 

JIM WARD

Oct. 26, 2020


In recent weeks, the Globe and Mail has published powerful articles on what appears to be overwhelming racial discrimination against non-white prisoners in the Canadian correctional system, particularly Indigenous and Black prisoners. The first of these deals with the appalling conditions under which prisoners in the Thunder Bay prison live, many of whom are still awaiting trial, i.e. have not been convicted as yet and are living the lives of people already found guilty of some crime. The majority of prisoners in the Thunder Bay prison are Indigenous. The second article provided considerable detail on the wide difference in treatment between white and non-white prisoners in Canada’s federal prisons.

I would like to make the case that what is primarily at work here is class discrimination. I am not aware whether or not anyone has, as yet, done a comparison between the treatment of white working class criminals and those with middle and upper class backgrounds. My hunch is that the level of treatment of the first and second group would be as radically different as it is between whites and non-whites.

Although, obviously there is systemic discrimination and prejudice that markedly affects the life chances of racialized minorities and, therefore, makes it far more likely that they will be trapped in lower class and/or working class positions in society. But it is the class distinction that really puts them in such places in the class system, unless by some astonishing serendipity they break out of the mold. Ergo, such an individual is more likely to break the rule code and resort to illegal methods for getting those things so valued in a mixed capitalist/liberal society such as Canada. Robert Merton (1938) the famed American sociologist characterized this as Strain Theory. His argument was that social structures, particularly in a strongly class-stratified society, are a key factor in leading some of those restrained by such structures from achieving ‘success’ in the legitimate way. Thus they are led to achieve such success in illegitimate ways, i.e. through crime. Hence, it is no surprise to find a strong link between the rigidity of social structures and the tendency for those at the lower-class levels to resort to crime. Merton went so far as to argue that the rise of the Mafia in the United States was strongly linked to discrimination against Italian immigrants. It was discrimination and prejudice that put the Italian immigrants at the bottom end of the social structure, a kind of racism to be sure, but it was their place in the class structure rather than racism that had the long-lasting effect.

Social mobility, too, is an important factor. The World Economic Forum recently ranked 82 of the world’s nations in terms of their levels of social mobility, i.e. the extent to which an individual born into a particular place in the class structure can expect to move upwards in his or her life time. Canada ranks fourteenth by this measure. As might be expected, the Scandinavian nations, with their more robust welfare states, are at the top of the list. Working

towards increasing social mobility is an important goal for a society that wishes to become more inclusive. In their book The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, Wilkinson and Pickett (2011) provide statistically-supported arguments to show that those nations with the least inequality and, therefore, less rigid class structures, are those with the lowest levels of crime. Of course, it also has to be said that the highest levels of crime, e.g. the stashing away of billions of dollars by the super-rich in tax havens, is a crime that, with very few exceptions, goes unpunished. This is even though, according to some estimates, the amount of money stolen in this way is over twenty times that stolen in street crimes, i.e. the crimes that most of those in Canadian prisons have committed. Zucman (2015) provides a compelling picture of the scale of the problem.

Thus the definition and punishment of crime is very much related to the rigidity of a class system and there is a need to re-think the whole area of crime and justice. It cannot credibly be represented by a blindfolded woman holding the scales, wherein the myth is perpetuated that all are treated equally. And, to be sure, those that are racialized and thus kept more firmly at the bottom of the class system are bound to experience more obstacles to a materially and morally satisfactory life. My argument is that class trumps race or, at the very least, exacerbates the indignities suffered through racist approaches to the world.

To quote Dostoevsky’s Prison Life in Siberia, “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”


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Resources

Dostoevsky, F. (2015). Prison Life in Siberia. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Merton, R.K. (1938). Social structure and anomie. American Sociological Review, 3, 672−682.Wilkinson, R. & Pickett, K. (20**). The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger.

Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K, (2011). The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA.

Zucman, G. (2015). The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens. University of Chicago Press

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