The Challenges

Canada incarcerates people at rates that exceed most comparable nations, and the consequences fall unevenly across the population. Prisons and youth detention facilities hold disproportionate numbers of people experiencing mental ill-health, substance use disorders, histories of trauma, and neurodevelopmental conditions. The justice system has become a default response to social problems that other systems have failed to address.

Indigenous peoples face the sharpest edge of this failure. The overrepresentation of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples in Canada's criminal justice system has been described by the Office of the Correctional Investigator as one of the country's most pressing human rights challenges. Indigenous adults comprise approximately 5% of the Canadian population but account for 33% of admissions to federal custody. Indigenous women represent nearly half of all federally incarcerated women. Indigenous young people accounted for 40% of youth admissions to provincial and territorial correctional services in 2022/23 despite representing only 8% of the youth population.

These figures have worsened over time. Before 1960, Indigenous people represented between one and two percent of the correctional population. The Supreme Court of Canada characterised Indigenous overincarceration as a crisis in 1999. A quarter of a century later, the situation has deteriorated further.

Yet the challenges extend beyond Indigenous communities. Across Canada, young people from low-income backgrounds, those who have experienced family violence or child protection involvement, and those with mental health conditions or learning difficulties are funnelled toward justice system contact. Black Canadians face documented racial disparities in policing, charging, and sentencing. People experiencing homelessness cycle through courts and remand centres. The relationship between the child welfare and criminal justice systems remains troublingly strong: young people who have been in care are dramatically overrepresented among those who later face criminal charges.

Remand populations have grown across jurisdictions, as people are detained before conviction because they cannot meet bail conditions, lack stable housing, or have no access to appropriate support services. The costs are substantial: billions of dollars annually on corrections, with limited evidence that incarceration reduces reoffending or improves community safety.

The drivers are well documented. Poverty, housing instability, educational exclusion, family breakdown, exposure to violence, mental ill-health, and substance use create pathways into the justice system. For Indigenous peoples, these factors compound with the intergenerational effects of colonisation, residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, and ongoing systemic racism. But the fundamental pattern holds across populations: the justice system receives those whom other systems have failed.

Grounds for hope

Despite these entrenched challenges, evidence of what works continues to accumulate, and communities across Canada are demonstrating alternatives.

Prevention and early intervention approaches are gaining traction. Research consistently shows that investment in early childhood, family support, mental health services, and educational engagement reduces later contact with the justice system. The economic case is compelling: prevention costs less than incarceration, with broader social returns. Developmental crime prevention, which addresses risk factors at critical life stages, has strong evidence across multiple jurisdictions.

Community-based justice programmes are demonstrating results. Restorative justice approaches, which bring together those who have caused harm, those affected, and community members to address the underlying issues and repair relationships, show reduced reoffending compared to conventional court processes. These approaches work across populations and have been particularly embraced by Indigenous communities as consistent with traditional practices.

Indigenous-led initiatives are leading transformation. In March 2025, Canada released its first federal Indigenous Justice Strategy, developed through extensive engagement with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis partners. The Strategy acknowledges that systemic discrimination lies at the root of overrepresentation and commits to reform across the justice continuum.

The Indigenous Justice Program supports over 200 community-based initiatives, from crime prevention programming for Inuit youth in Nunavut to family mediation for Métis communities, to diversion programmes in urban centres. The Land Program connects at-risk Inuit youth to culture through guided trips involving hunting and harvesting. Aboriginal Legal Services in Toronto operates diversion programmes that have helped Indigenous youth and adults access culturally appropriate alternatives to prosecution. Evaluations indicate reduced recidivism and high participant satisfaction.

Programmes serving broader populations are also showing promise. The Thunder Bay Youth Inclusion Program takes a neighbourhood-based approach to preventing crime and promoting wellbeing for all youth, with particular attention to Indigenous young people moving to urban areas for education. Blueprint Pathways operates in secure detention facilities across Canada, using hip-hop arts and mental health programming to help young people build better futures. Mental health courts and drug treatment courts offer alternatives to conventional prosecution for people whose offending is linked to health issues.

Provincial initiatives are advancing. Ontario's Youth Justice Services Redesign prioritises community-based prevention and diversion, with specific streams for Indigenous youth. The Northern and Indigenous Crime Prevention Fund supports community-led initiatives that integrate cultural values into crime prevention. Across jurisdictions, there is growing recognition that policing cannot be the frontline response to mental health crises, homelessness, or substance use.

The Gladue principles, established by the Supreme Court in 1999, require sentencing judges to consider the unique circumstances of Indigenous offenders and to explore alternatives to incarceration. While implementation has been inconsistent, evaluations of Gladue courts show that when properly resourced, over 80% of sentences follow report recommendations. The principles have also prompted broader reflection on how courts should consider systemic factors affecting all marginalised populations, including proposals for Impact of Race and Culture Assessments for Black offenders.

What we bring

Prevention Works – Canada connects research with implementation. We work with governments, commissioners, Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities and organisations, and practitioners to translate evidence about prevention into strategy, and strategy into practice.

We work across the system: with Indigenous communities exercising self-determination over justice responses; with provincial and territorial governments responsible for most criminal justice administration; with municipalities addressing community safety; and with the community organisations, health services, schools, and housing providers whose work shapes whether people end up in contact with the justice system at all.

We recognise that Canada's justice systems have been instruments of colonial harm for Indigenous peoples and that lasting change for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities requires Indigenous self-determination. We also recognise that prevention benefits everyone: safer communities, fewer victims, reduced public expenditure, and better outcomes for people who might otherwise cycle through courts and prisons.

We offer:

• Strategic consultancy for federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments seeking to design and implement prevention-focused policy
• Training and mentoring for practitioners working across justice, health, child welfare, education, housing, and community services
• Evaluation that captures what works, for whom, and in what circumstances, using culturally appropriate and rigorous methods
• Knowledge translation through open-access resources, toolkits, and learning networks
• Implementation support to help communities and agencies move from strategy to action

Our approach is grounded in systems thinking, recognising that prevention requires collaboration across organisational boundaries and attention to how institutions interact across the life course. We understand that the justice system cannot solve problems created elsewhere, and that investment must flow toward the services and supports that prevent harm before it occurs.

The opportunity

Canada does not lack evidence, legal frameworks, or community capacity. What has been missing is sustained commitment to implementation that matches policy rhetoric.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action were issued a decade ago. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls delivered its Calls for Justice in 2019. The new Indigenous Justice Strategy provides a framework for action. Across the country, there is growing recognition that incarceration is expensive, often ineffective, and disproportionately harms the most marginalised.

The question is whether this recognition translates into changed practice: investment in prevention rather than reaction, support for community-led approaches, and the sustained attention that implementation requires.

Prevention Works – Canada exists to help close the gap between aspiration and action. The evidence is clear. The frameworks exist. The communities are ready. Prevention works, for Indigenous peoples and for all Canadians. The task now is to make it the norm.

Get in touch

If you are working on prevention in Canada, whether in government, Indigenous organisations, community agencies, research, or frontline practice, we would welcome the opportunity to connect.