Citation

Martel J, Brassard R, Jaccoud M. Br. J. Criminol. 2011; 51(2): 235-255.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Publisher Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/bjc/azr003

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In the last two decades, Indigenous lobbies have pointed a harsh finger at the endemic overrepresentation of Indigenous individuals in prisons in Canada and abroad. In reaction to such a condemnatory critique, correctional authorities in Canada have sought to 'aboriginalize' prisons. This paper addresses some of the prison's adaptation schemes to shed light on three contradictory logics of risk-based management: (1) high-risk aboriginal offenders have little access to risk-reducing programmes; (2) aboriginality undergoes an ontological mutation that occurs during the process of risk assessment; and (3) aboriginal correctional staff play a contradictory role in the (re)production of 'aboriginal risk'. To what extent, then, does the aboriginalization of prisons constitute a valuable transformation?