Indigenous writing and the residential school experience

"In the Canadian criminal justice system, aboriginal peoples are overrepresented as both victims and offenders. The aboriginal incarcerated population in Canada is rising each year and aboriginal people are twice as likely to become victims of assaults when compared to non-aboriginal people. In response, the Canadian state has framed the disproportionate victimization and criminalization of aboriginal peoples as being an "Indian problem." In The Colonial Problem, Lisa Monchalin challenges the myth of the Indian problem by encouraging readers to recognize the consequences of assimilation, crimes affecting aboriginal peoples, and violence against aboriginal women from a more culturally aware position. By bringing to light the truth of Canada's colonial past, the book demonstrates that the overrepresentation of aboriginal peoples in the Canadian criminal justice system is not an Indian problem but a colonial one." - Publisher

"This book closes a gap in decolonizing intersectional and comparative research by addressing issues around the mass incarceration of Indigenous women in the US, Australia, Canada, and Aotearoa New Zealand. This edited collection seeks to add to the criminological discourse by increasing public awareness of the social problem of disproportionate incarceration rates. It illuminates how settler-colonial societies continue to deny many Indigenous peoples the life relatively free from state interference which most citizens enjoy. The authors explore how White-settler supremacy is exercised and preserved through neo-colonial institutions, policies and laws leading to failures in social and criminal justice reform and the impact of women's incarceration on their children, partners, families, and communities." - Publisher