Top court rules on Indigenous jail tests
7-2 decision: Prison service has failed to ensure its assessment tools are fair to some inmates
OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada says the federal prison service has failed to ensure its psychological assessment tools are fair to Indigenous inmates.
In a 7-2 decision Wednesday, the high court accepted prisoner Jeffrey Ewert’s challenge of five assessment techniques the Correctional Service of Canada uses to gauge the risk of reoffending and potential for violence.
It effectively means the Correctional Service must review the tools to make certain they are free of cultural bias, or stop using them altogether.
“For the correctional system, like the criminal justice system as a whole, to operate fairly and effectively, those administering it must abandon the assumption that all offenders can be treated fairly by being treated the same way,” a majority of the court said in its reasons.
Ewert, who identifies as Métis, alleged the techniques were not proven to be reliable for Indigenous inmates because they were developed and tested on predominantly non-Indigenous subjects.
He claimed that reliance on the tools violated the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, which requires the prison service to “take all reasonable steps to ensure that any information about an offender that it uses is as accurate, up-to-date and complete as possible.”
Ewert, 56, also contended that use of the tools violated constitutional guarantees of equality and liberty.
Born to a Métis mother and a British father, Ewert was adopted as a baby by a Caucasian family in Surrey, B.C.
Court documents describe his adoptive father as an alcoholic, and his adoptive mother as psychologically unstable and abusive. Ewert was subjected to racism and discrimination both at home and at school.
He has been locked up for more than 30 years in maximum- and medium-security institutions, serving two concurrent life sentences for second-degree murder, attempted murder and escape from custody.
Ewert became eligible for day parole in 1996 and full parole three years later. However, he has waived his right to each parole hearing.
A Federal Court judge found the prison service had breached the corrections act and infringed Ewert’s charter right to liberty, but the decision was later overturned — prompting his appeal to the Supreme Court.