Race, Ethnicity, Crime and Criminal Justice in Canada

Abstract

Canada has an international reputation for being a tolerant, diverse nation comprised of people from many racial, ethnic, cultural and religious groups. However, as with all heterogeneous countries, Canada has not escaped moral panics regarding immigrant criminality nor concerns about the possible discriminatory treatment of racial minorities by the criminal justice system. This chapter begins with a brief description of Canada’s immigration history and provides a profile of Canada’s current racial minority populations. The chapter then documents the over-representation of certain racial minority groups within the Canadian criminal justice system, and briefly explores patterns of minority victimization and offending. We next examine minority perceptions of the Canadian police and criminal courts and examine evidence of racial bias in the Canadian criminal justice system. The chapter concludes by arguing that Canada’s current ban on race-crime statistics not only prevents the thorough study of minority crime issues, but it also hinders efforts to eliminate racism from Canadian policing, court processes and corrections.