Documentation of unequitable sentencing for Black persons (1908-1960) (aug 21, 1908 – dec 5, 1960)

Description:

"From 1908 to 1960, Blacks convicted of violent offences would receive far more severe sentences (Mosher and Akins 2015: 339). The result of these court decisions was a consistently disproportionate rate of incarceration for Black people. In 1911, Black males were incarcerated at a rate eighteen times higher than that of white males, while in 1931 they were incarcerated at a rate ten times higher than whites (Mosher 1998 in Mosher and Akins 2015: 339) Incarceration had replaced enslavement as a legal means to literally strip people of their feedom, as well as separate families and inhibit future employment opportunities. Black incarceration was thus highly effective in maintaining Black disenfranchisement and subjugation in post-abolition Canada. The association of Blackness with danger allowed for the policing of Black people's lives by white settler society, law enforcement and immigration agencies--Black emancipation had not yet been actualized."

Source: Robyn Maynard. Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present (2017). Page 48.

*Month(s) & day(s) in date range approximate