Criminalized Women in Canada

• The text discusses criminalized women in Canada, touching on their backgrounds, the crimes they commit, and the challenges they face within the justice system.
• It also examines coping strategies, self-injury, suicide, substance abuse, and the roles of various watchdog groups.

Introduction

• The author shares a personal anecdote about her sister, who once asked about obtaining a pardon for a past arrest, to illustrate how easily an individual can be labeled a criminal, even if they do not fit the typical stereotype.
• The sister was arrested, charged, and convicted of public mischief for blocking a road during a demonstration related to the Oka Crisis approximately 30 years ago, which resulted in her spending a day in jail.
• Her surprise stemmed from the fact that a police officer was not returning her calls.
• Despite being a journalist with strong interpersonal skills, her past arrest reduced her to a "criminal" in the eyes of the officer.

Criminalized Women

• The term "criminalized" is favored over "offender" to describe individuals whose behavior is criminally sanctioned by law.
• Race, class, gender, and sexuality disproportionately affect marginalized groups in complex ways, having profound affect on criminalization.
• Crime categories are legal constructions, representing the official version of a woman's behavior, thus creating a binary of "us" versus "them."

Classifications of Crimes

• Classifying criminalized women by their crimes has little utility.
• Crime categories are simply legal constructions representing the official version of events and silences any competing versions.
• A need exists to understand the types of crimes women commit and compare them to those committed by men.
• Women, who account for just over half (50.4%) of Canada's population, represent a smaller proportion of those in conflict with the law.
• Women account for about a quarter of accusations in police-reported incidents.
• Females make up 7.45% of the federal inmate population, which is a 32.5% increase in the past decade.
• Men are more likely to face multiple charges, while women are more likely to be one-time offenders.
• 15% of criminalized women were classified as "repeat offenders" in 2006, opposed a 10% classification in 1997.
• Twice as many incarcerated men (30%) had a previous federal sentence compared to women.

Crimes Against the Person

• Roughly 23% of women with completed adult court cases in 2018–2019 were charged with crimes against the person.
• There has been a slight increase in the percentage of women found guilty of crimes against the person since 2005–2006.
• Males are disproportionately represented in convictions for crimes against the person.

Crimes Against Property

• Just over a quarter (25.8%) of women whose cases are completed in adult court were charged with property crime.
• About a fifth (21.5%) of those convicted are women.
• The highest percentage of women found guilty across all convictions related to property crime, specifically fraud and theft.
• Women are more likely to write bad cheques, commit credit card fraud, or shoplift, rather than break into homes or offices.

Administration of Justice Offences

• It involves crimes related to the justice system, with a charge of failure to appear laid if an accused person misses a court date, or breaching probation conditions.
• Approximately one in six individuals charged and convicted of administration of justice offenses were female in 2018–2019.
• Women have the highest conviction rate for failure to appear.
• Women's representation is highest in completed court cases of fraud (28.1%) and theft (27.3%).

Crimes Related to Illicit Drugs

• This comprises offenses such as driving under the influence, possession, trafficking, and importation of illicit drugs.
• Drug trafficking, according to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (1996), relates to selling, administering, giving, transferring, transporting, sending, or delivering an illegal substance.
• While Canada's crime rate decreased from 1991 to 2014, drug-related offenses increased by 52%.
• Before cannabis legalization, two out of three police-reported drug crimes related to cannabis, with possession making up over half of these crimes.
• Charges in relation to cannabis charges decreased by 15% between 2014-2015, following the legalization of cannabis, while charges in relation with other controlled drugs and substances increased by 17%.
• Men significantly outnumber women in drug-related charges. Only 18% of those charged were women in 2013.
• More women (29%) were charged with importing or exporting drugs rather than possessing drugs (17%)

Theft and Fraud

• With respect to theft and fraud, men again outnumber women.
• Theft and fraud are particularly favored from criminalized women's perspectives.
• Approximately 27.3% of all theft convictions and 28.1% of fraud convictions are women.
• Few women have historically committed property crimes like break-ins or auto theft.
• Women's crimes center on meeting their economic needs.
• In 1987, women accounted for 44% of shoplifting charges for less than $1,000 items, and approximately 27% of check and credit card fraud.

Coping with Incarceration

• Any behavior a person employs to deal with a difficult situation is considered a coping strategy.
• Coping strategies are categorized as functional or dysfunctional.

Coping with a History of Abuse

• Identifying how criminalized women who experienced childhood abuse resisted and coped with their experiences could uncover new coping strategies to take control over situations currently.
• Coping skills included behaviors such as becoming sexually active, engaging in se trade, drug and or alcohol use.
• Some suggested that women coping with intimate partner violence contacted police in the hopes that assistance would arrive or to obtain support from a shelter.

Different Types of Coping Strategies

• People adapt different kinds of coping strategies to deal with stressful events in their lives.
• Criminalized women use positive ways to cope with stressors, and the focus is on those strategies that are dysfunctional in nature e.g. self-injury, suicide, and alcohol and drug use.
• Self-injurious behavior is not a new phenomenon.
• It has been studied in both forensic and non-forensic samples of women. Self-injury can include many behaviors such as hanging, cutting, scratching, re-opening wounds, head banging, biting, swallowing non-food items, and inserting objects into the skin.

The April 22nd Incident at the Prison for Women

• On April 22, 1994, an incident occurred outside the hospital area at P4W.
• Two women approached the barrier, and one demanded her medication in an aggressive and loud manner which correctional officers were controlling.
• After what appeared to be a signal from one of the women, a group of six jumped the officers
• The women reportedly made threatening statements toward the correctional staff.

Challenges to Implementing the Creating Choices Recommendations

• The creation of Creating Choices had met numerous critical barriers.
• The mandate of the Task Force of Federally Sentenced Women was to assess the correctional management of women sentenced to federal prison in Canada, from the beginning of their sentences to their date of warrant expiry.
• Included in the mandate was the need to develop a strategic plan to guide and direct this process in a way that was respectful of the specific needs of these women (TFFSW, 1990). The CSC faced some clear difficulties when it came to the operation of the new regional facilities for women.

Watchdog Groups

• Watchdog groups ensure to ensure the rights of people who conflicted with the law are well protected in prison.
• The Office of the Correctional Investigator, Citizen Advisory Committees, and the Elizabeth Fry Society.