Racism Against African Canadians in the Justice System

Notably, racism assumes institutionalized perspective whereby the perceptions of superiority and inferiority begets widespread atrocities such as witnessed in the Holocaust, slavery and segregation in the United States, slavery in the Latin America, and apartheid in South Africa, just to mention a few. In other words, once the ideology of racial inferiority and superiority dominates people’s minds, the society assumes a cultural shift with manifestations experienced in the institutions such as the hospitals, in the work and labour market, the police service, judicial system and education sector, just to mention a few (Sheppard, 2017). Multicultural psychology, on the other hand, seeks to evaluate how culture influences individual’s behaviour, individual cognition and their perception towards the society they live in. With the observation that culture influences individuals’ perception and expressions in the real world, the fluidity or lack of it tend to impact the way people feel, act and think (Smith & Trimble, 2016).

Therefore, understanding the aspects of racism against African-Canadians in the justice system augur with the overall tenets of multicultural psychology of analysing how culture impacts internal and external factors in psychological processes, mental health, and the overall wellbeing. The general consensus is the desire to abolish same special considerations in sentencing of indigenous offenders and that the offenders of black-Canadian ancestry receive the same treatment. In other words, the panel observed that increased types and forms of racism, in a way, contribute to geographic, social and economic hardships faced by black-Canadians that tend to shape choices that blacks have to make in life. The chronic criminalization of black people in Canada that results in overrepresentation of African-Canadians in the prisons and other authority-related records goes on to show the rate of discrimination in the justice system.

In addition, the extent of carding and street checks by the police service manifests the widespread cases of racial profiling that threatens Canada’s values of multiculturalism and equality. From a broader perspective, the continued push for a criminal justice policy program for the decade in Canada shows the desire to implement thoughtful activities geared toward eliminating cases of racism, more so, the anti-black discrimination in justice system. A study by Tobias & Joseph (2018) foresees dangers of retaliation from the African-Canadians who perceive greater heights of enhanced police scrutiny and surveillance to inherently break the laws as compared to the whites for the same criminal act. In addition, the card system seems to racially discriminate African-Canadians as the majority of criminals compared to the white counterparts, who in the real sense constitute a majority in the north of America.

In the same fashion, this type of discrimination tends to alienate African-Canadians from mainstream society, while at the same time reinforcing the prospects of perceived discrimination and racial injustices. Use of Force by Police Increased cases of policemen employing much and unnecessary force while dealing with the black population reinforces the view that the police service hold biased views towards the black population. In context, studies indicate that the rate of police shooting for black residents in Ontario to rise in the high of 7. That is, the racial disparities in the process of pretrial and sentencing have significant impact on the overall outcome of a jurisprudence; indicating the overrepresentation of minorities in the Canadian correction facilities. A study by Marshall (2017) indicate extremes of racial bias in pretrial decision-making processes, with 36% of the accused from the black minority detained before trial and insignificant 8% of other backgrounds.

From an in-depth analysis, as a predictor of pretrial detention, race plays a significant denominator of identifying fright risks and the degree of endangerment to the rest of the society. Notably, previous charges and charges for failure to appear, employment status, home address, seriousness of the current charges, length of the criminal record and the overall “negative moral assessments” tend to expose African-Canadians to the subjective police descriptions. This, in turn, dictates the nature of relationship between the police and the offenders, with the pretrial detention assumed as the necessary protective measure to handle African-Canadians against another populace. Notably, a criminal justice policy for a decade showcases detailed policies and program of activities geared toward attaining favourable domestic interactions between the police and the civilians.

They include policies that adopt equality laws in the formation of human rights tribunals and those that provide reparations whenever the justice system seems to perpetuate illogical state-sanctioned enslavement or infringement of human rights and freedoms. For instance, the 2016-2017 correctional investigator’s report indicated the need for correctional justice reforms and concise African-Canadian justice portfolio as the legitimate representation of the will of Canadians of Black ancestry into eliminating prejudice and improving public overview of the criminal justice system. Education-Backed Programs and Training to avert Xenophobia and Afrophobia The government embarks on routine training to its officers in the public institutions on the importance of multicultural sensitivity, responses and the overall understanding of ethnically and racially different civilians. Notably, the government recognizes the role of trained psychologists in conducting and disseminating culture-centred and psychological studies to the policing and justice systems in the country to protect the interests of ethnic, linguistic and racial minorities within the judicial process.