The Role Of Minorities In The Canadian Judicial System

Introduction:
The judicial system in Canada strives to maintain the position that those who enter the courts are innocent until proven guilty. Many minorities enter the courts for various reasons, sometimes opposing bills, other times for offences that are not always correct. Bills have been passed that target certain groups, minorities face the possibility of their ethnicity affecting how they are treated by the police and courts and, in particular, the indigenous people face negative victimization in criminal courts and correctional facilities. There has proven to be an over representation in the criminal justice system of Black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals and the system seems to be uninterested in the issue (David Lammy, 2017).
A study in 2012 found that people of colour make up a small percentage of federal judges, provincial judges and practising lawyers (Nicholas Keung, 2012). Judges and lawyers hold very important positions in the judicial system and the underrepresentation of minorities among them should not be so evident. Among police officers in Canada there is a lack of diversity, with numbers such as only 19% of the peel regional police being non-white (Jacques Marcoux, Katie Nicholson, Vera-Lynn Kubinec and Holly Moore, 2016). It is no wonder minorities are overrepresented in correctional facilities and interactions with the police with very little representation of minorities working within the Canadian judicial system. These numbers are concerning and reflect blatant racism in the Canadian Judicial System. Minorities are victims to the justice system, as they are victims in society to racism. Jobs such a police officers, lawyers and judges are long term jobs, meaning many people are employed for up to 30 years or more. This means that minorities will struggle to be represented for many years to
The colour of someone’s skin or their ethnicity should never affect how the laws apply to them. The racial bias in the criminal justice system is evident for African Americans and Indigenous people. African Americans are being placed in maximum security prisons when they do not require so and judges are not taking into consideration the history of aboriginal people in sentencing. Although crimes still need punishment prison can not properly rehabilitate someone who is suffering from alcohol or drug abuse. Aboriginals are discriminated against in the prison system with tests of security being biased against them (Kathleen Harris 2017) The test does not account for the language barrier between Aboriginals and officers (Kathleen Harris 2017). Lastly, the over representation or aboriginals and African Americans can be link to their low representation in the police force, as lawyers and judges. There are very little minorities in those professions to advocate for the treatment of them or make a change to the