Predictive Effects of (Neo)Colonialism and Other Forms of Structural Violence on Involuntary Contacts with the Criminal Justice System in Canada: A Statistical Analysis with an Autoethnographic Perspective

Social work, since its inception, has been premised on the value of social justice. At its core, social justice is about the elimination of structural violence. Thus, social work practitioners, educators, and researchers must be acutely aware of what structural violence is, how it is perpetuated, and what can be done to work towards its reduction and ultimate elimination. However, little social work research has been dedicated to quantitatively assessing the impacts of structural violence, especially as they relate to the criminal justice system. The current study, using autoethnographic narratives and statistical analyses, contributes to important dialogues related to structural violence and social justice, and how they are related to the criminal justice system, specifically regarding policing. The purpose of this study was to test the effects of structural violence on involuntary contacts with police and criminal courts in Canada, while opening opportunities for dialogue on atonement and reconciliation. In so doing, this research was premised on working toward personal, social, and cultural understanding and transformation.Six hypotheses related to involuntary contacts with police were tested and were systematically replicated for contact with criminal courts. These hypotheses were tested using the 28th cycle of Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey. The sample consisted of 1,162 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples and 27,371 white settler people. Univariate frequency distributions were employed to describe the study samples and binary logistic regression models were used to test the hypotheses across both outcomes. The independent predictive effects of being an Indigenous person, of having experienced violence in multiple structures of Canadian society, and of having experienced discrimination extensively on contacts with police and criminal courts were all quite large. The predictive effect of gender was very small. No support was found for the interaction hypotheses; meaning the effects of structural violence and discrimination are equally as harmful for everyone. However, the risk of an Indigenous person having been involuntarily contacted by the police was more than three times greater than the risk among white settler people. The autoethnographic narratives weaved throughout each of the chapters highlighted the importance of understanding both privilege and oppression and engaging in reciprocity, alliance building, trust, authenticity, and knowledge and skill transfer between Indigenous peoples and settler white people. The novel findings of this study add to the current literature related to structural violence, including colonization, and contacts with police in Canada. Moreover, the current study highlighted that without public critique and measures being instituted to bring about change, the status quo of domination over Indigenous peoples and the harmful impacts of structural violence are likely to continue. Social workers must function to eliminate continued indifference, ineffective policies, programs and practices, and deliberate acts of violence, racism, sexism, hegemonic discourses, and ignorance. Only through understanding and recognizing these issues can social workers and other helping professionals, and the public begin to develop the urgently needed counter-narratives

Structural Violence Perpetrated Against Indigenous Peoples in Canadian Criminal Courts: Meta-Analytic Evidence of Longstanding Sentencing Inequities

Social justice entails opposing discrimination and working towards eliminating structural violence. The problem of overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples across Canada’s criminal justice system, a site of structural violence, has persisted for decades. Most studies uncovered through this review and meta-analysis indicated Indigenous disadvantage in criminal sentencing. Specifically, Indigenous peoples were at much greater risk of receiving punitive sentences than non-Indigenous people. Additionally, the disparity was observed to be significantly greater among women than men. This synthesis also elucidated the paucity of data and research related to Indigenous peoples’ involvement with the court system. Implications and future research needs are discussed

Contact is a Stronger Predictor of Attitudes Toward Police than Race: A State-of-the-Art Review

Purpose – This scoping review thoroughly scanned research on race, contacts with police and attitudes toward police. An exploratory meta-analysis then assessed the strength of their associations and interaction in Canada and the USA. Key knowledge gaps and specific future research needs, synthetic and primary, were identified. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A germinal methodological framework for conducting scoping reviews was used (Arksey and O’Malley, 2005). The authors searched for published or unpublished research over the past 15 years and retrieved 33 eligible surveys, 19 of which were included in a sample-weighted meta-analysis. Findings – The independent association of contact with attitudes toward police was estimated to be three times larger than the independent race association. Three large knowledge gaps were identified. Almost nothing is known about these associations among specific racial groups as they were typically aggregated into visible minority groupings. The authors have essentially no knowledge yet about specific racial group by a specific type of contact interactions. There is also a lack of generalizable knowledge as research has been largely restricted to locales. Originality/value – This is the first research synthesis of race and attitudes toward the police that incorporated contacts with the police. Its observation of the relative importance of contacts suggested a great preventive potential. This scoping review identified needs for a full systematic research review and a formal meta-analysis to plan future primary research including large national studies that are truly representative of Canada and America’s diversity. Such will be needed to advance more confident knowledge about the factors that would support more trusted relationships between police and people in the communities they aim to serve

Profound barriers to basic cancer care most notably experienced by uninsured women: Historical note on the present policy considerations

America is considering the replacement of Obamacare with Trumpcare. This historical cohort revisited pre-Obamacare colon cancer care among people living in poverty in California (N = 5,776). It affirmed a gender by health insurance hypothesis on nonreceipt of surgery such that uninsured women were at greater risk than uninsured men. Uninsured women were three times as likely as insured women to be denied access to such basic care. Similar men were two times as likely. America is bound to repeat such profound health care inequities if Obamacare is repealed. Instead, Obamacare ought to be retained and strengthened in all states, red and blue

Morbid and Mortal Inequities among Indigenous People in Canada and the United States during the COVID-19 Pandemic Critical Review of Relative Risks and Protections

The COVID-19 pandemic focused the world’s attention on gross racialized health inequities and injustices. For political and scientific reasons much less is known about the plight of Indigenous peoples than about other ethnic groups. In fact, some of the early pandemic evidence suggested that Indigenous peoples, while clearly experiencing prevalent structural violence probably also experience certain cultural protections. Aiming to begin to clarify their relative risks and protections, we conducted a rapid critical research review and sample-weighted synthesis or meta-analysis of the publishedand gray literature on four COVID-19-relevant outcomes in Canada and the United States between January 1, 2020 and August 1, 2021: vaccination, infection, severe infection, and death rates. Twenty-nine Indigenous-non-Indigenous comparative surveys or cohorts that observed 33, typically age-standardized, incidence or mortality rates or their proxies were included. Consistent with structural violence theory, we found that Indigenous peoples were significantly more likely to be infected, to experience severe COVID-19 illness, or to die as a result of their illness, Indigenous mortal risks (RR = 2.45) being significantly greater than Indigenous morbid risks (RR = 1.40). Consistent with cultural strengths theory, vaccinations seemed equitably distributed (RR = 1.02) with a suggestion of greater vaccine willingness among Indigenous peoples in some places. Clearly, much work remains to be done to decolonize Indigenous research and ultimately practices and policies in North America. Indigenous knowledge user-researcher teams and their allies have much to teach about cultural and ultimately, policy protections

Motor vehicle collision‑related injuries and deaths among Indigenous Peoples in Canada: Meta‑analysis of geo‑structural factors

Introduction: Indigenous Peoples are much more likely than non‑Indigenous Peoples to be seriously injured or die in motor vehicle collisions (MVCs). This study updates and extends a previous systematic review, suggesting that future re‑ search ought to incorporate social–environmental factors. Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta‑analysis of the published and grey literature on MVCs involving Indigenous Peoples in Canada between 2010 and 2020. We focussed on personal (e.g. driving an old vehicle) and community social– environmental–economic factors (e.g. prevalent low socioeconomic status). Results: Eleven comparative cohorts that resulted in 23 at minimum, age‑standardised, mortality or morbidity rate outcomes were included in our meta‑analysis. Indigenous Peoples were twice as likely as non‑Indigenous Peoples to be seriously injured (rate ratio [RRpooled] = 2.18) and more than 3 times as likely to die (RRpooled = 3.40) in MVCs. Such great risks to Indigenous Peoples do not seem to have diminished over the past generation. Furthermore, such risks were greater on-reserves and in smaller, rural and remote, places. Conclusion: Such places may lack community resources, including fewer transportation and healthcare infrastructural investments, resulting in poorer road conditions in Indigenous communities and longer delays to trauma care. This seems to add further evidence of geo‑structural violence (geographical and institutional violence) perpetrated against Indigenous Peoples in yet more struc‑ tures (i.e. institutions) of Canadian society. Canada’s system of highways and road‑ ways and its remote health‑care system represent legitimate policy targets in aiming to solve this public health problem

Intersection of Indigenous Peoples and Police: Questions about Contact and Confidence

Despite much anecdotal, journalistic, and statistical evidence of their oppression by colonial and neocolonial police practices, little is known about Indigenous peoples’ attitudes towards the police in Canada. Th e theory that involuntary police–citizen contacts increase citizens’ mistrust, fear, and dissat- isfaction and, ultimately, decreases confi dence in the police was advanced. Hypotheses arising from this historical-theoretical context were tested with the 2014 panel of Canada’s General Social Survey, including 951 Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, or Inuit) and 21,576 non-Indigenous white participants. Indigenous identity and involuntary contacts were both signifi cantly associated with a lack of confi dence in police, p \u3c .001. As hypothesized, the odds associated with involuntary contacts (odds ratio [OR] = 2.66) were stronger than those associated with being Indigenous (OR = 1.81). While the hypothesized ethnicity by contact interaction was not observed, Indigenous participants (5%) were two and a half times as likely as non-Indigenous white participants (2%) to have had relatively frequent (two or more) involuntary contacts with the police during the past year. Th erefore, at the population level Indigenous people are at much greater risk of coming into involuntary contact with the police and of consequently lacking confi dence in police. Policy implications and future research needs are discussed

Introduction

Welcome to the newest issue (Vol. 21, No. 2) of Critical Social Work: An Interdisciplinary Journal Dedicated to Social Justice. This issue of Critical Social Work includes four peer-reviewed articles

Homelessness among Indigenous peoples in Canada: The impacts of child welfare involvement and educational achievement

Existing evidence suggests that child welfare involvement has a deleterious impact on Indigenous peoples in Canada in terms of increasing their risk of becoming a visible or hidden homeless individual. Visible homelessness is generally understood as those individuals found sleeping in parks, cars, shelters, or on the streets and other locales such as in abandoned buildings or under bridges. Whereas the hidden homeless are those who find interim accommodations with friends, family members, and acquaintances. Although in saying this, many of the visible homelessness scenarios can also be considered hidden. Regardless, all situations of homelessness reflect uncertainty, lack of safety, and an increased vulnerability to abuse and exploitation. The pathways to homelessness are rooted in structural deficits in the society, which are multiplicative and intersectional in nature. They include housing affordability, oppression, conditions of physical and mental well-being, employment and employability, as well as family support and community connection. On the other hand, the greater the educational achievement experienced by Indigenous peoples the less the risk of being subjected to homelessness. The premise of this paper is that Indigenous peoples are multiplicatively oppressed and that these intersecting sites of oppression increase the risk of Indigenous peoples in Canada becoming homelessness. Hypotheses were tested using the 2014 panel of Canada’s General Social Survey, including 1081 Indigenous peoples and 23,052 non-Indigenous white participants. Indigenous identity, involvement in the child welfare system, and level of educational achievement were all significantly associated with experiences of hidden and visible homelessness, p \u3c .001. As hypothesized, the odds associated with being involved in the child welfare system (odds ratio [OR] = 4.15) were stronger than that associated with identifying as Indigenous (OR = 1.47). As predicted, achieving a university education served as a protection against becoming homelessness (OR = 0.27). The hypothesized relationship between ethnicity and child welfare system involvement interaction was not observed. However, Indigenous participants (7.1%) were nearly four times as likely to have been involved with the child welfare system than were non-Indigenous white people (1.9%). Thus, at the population level, Indigenous peoples are at far greater risk of having been involved in the child welfare system, and consequently experiencing homelessness than non-Indigenous peoples. Of note, the hypothesized ethnicity by educational attainment interaction was observed. Among white people in Canada, a university education likely prevents most (83%) of visible homelessness otherwise experienced by those who did not complete high school (OR = 0.17) and prevents a significant amount (18%) of hidden homelessness. Startlingly, no such prevention was associated with completion of university among Indigenous peoples in Canada. Implications and future research needs are discussed