Saskatchewan near bottom in justice system report card

Saskatchewan’s high crime rates and disproportionately high rates of Indigenous people in custody have contributed to the province landing near the bottom of a national criminal justice system report card.

“There are significant and very serious concerns with the justice system in Saskatchewan and they are persisting,” said Benjamin Perrin, a co-author of the report who is a law professor at the University of British Columbia.

Saskatchewan scored ninth out of the 13 provinces and territories for the second year of the report, released this week by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. The assessment is based on analysis of data from Statistics Canada.

Saskatchewan has the highest violent crime rate and property crime rate of any province.

It also has one of the highest levels of Indigenous incarceration in Canada: In 2016, there were 4.7 times more Indigenous people admitted to prison than there were in the overall population, Perrin said.

“It’s absolutely unconscionable that we see these astronomical rates,” he said.

The province also has lower than average access to fairness and justice, measured by its relatively low legal aid spending per crime.

“Indigenous peoples are less likely to have legal representation and as a result they’re more likely to have poor outcomes in the criminal justice system,” Perrin said.

Indigenous people also are far more likely to be victims of crime such as homicide or sexual assault, he said.

In Saskatchewan, 31 per cent of charges are stayed or withdrawn, thereby unnecessarily clogging the court system and inconveniencing people with charges that ultimately go nowhere, Perrin said.

On the plus side, Saskatchewan has among the highest clearance rates for violent and non-violent crime, it has a relatively low average daily inmate cost and confidence in the police is above average.