Systemic Discrimination Essay

Our Canadian legal system is based on equality regardless of any demographic affliction and due to this our legal elements should reflect this as well. Nonetheless, the Aboriginal people of Canada don't enjoy this right because some of the elements reflect systemic discrimination towards them and due to this unfortunate occurrence; legal justness doesn't apply and therefore contributes to an overrepresentation of Aboriginals in our justice system. Systemic discrimination refers to enforcing laws and creating policies that may appear to treat everyone equally but are inherently harmful to a group of people (Boyington et al., 2017). Therefore, an important element of the legal system is neutrality and the concern is how the law doesn't consider …show more content…
Moreover, the legal system has a moral duty to ensure these things are considered when they try to figure out what treatment that an offender will receive. Due to a lack of consideration, the law isn't being applied in a legally just way. Also, some trends also highlight the presence of systemic discrimination; these include, an increase in the Aboriginal inmate population, Aboriginals being twice as likely to be incarcerated than non-Aboriginals, the likelihood of early release doesn't exist and also they will be more likely to return to prison as a repeat offender (Boyington et al., 2017). Being impartial is an important element of our legal system, but the presence of these trends doesn't support this element because of their past history which has included discrimination and also harsh treatment. Hence, the trends are just a mere reflection of this reality and due to these trends; the negative socio-economic reality does exist. In closing, the discrimination that the Aboriginals have experienced with the law shows a lack of neutrality, and due to a lack of neutrality, the notion of legal justness doesn't apply which results in an overrepresentation of Aboriginals in our justice