Criminalization of Racialized Disabled Youth: A Thematic Content Analysis
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Date
2024-07
Authors
Kaur, Cathleen
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Publisher
Mount Saint Vincent University
Abstract
Youth incarceration in Canada has shown disparate trends. The overall crime rate for youth in Canada has decreased, while the number of Indigenous and visible minority youth within youth justice system has risen (Department of Justice, Canada, 2021). The youth at the intersections of disability and racialization are disproportionately represented among the incarcerated. However, there is a paucity of research on the lived experiences of those youth who are both racialized and disabled in prisons across Canada. This research engages an intersectional theoretical framework to critically analyze the narratives of young racialized and disabled prisoners in Ontario through a thematic content analysis of the Disability Justice Network of Ontario’s (DJNO) Prison Project datasets. The sampled datasets were analyzed to provide an in-depth understanding of the oppression within incarceration. The findings of this research reaffirm the overrepresentation of disabled and visible minority youth within the criminal justice system. Furthermore, the unique oppression of disabled, racialized prisoners in Canadian prisons is evident through the prevalence of ableism within the criminal justice system, subhuman and life-threatening conditions of incarceration for disabled, racialized prisoners and the compounding of the consequences of these identities in augmenting their marginalization. The prisons confine, pathologize, stigmatize and dehumanize racialized and disabled people and therefore, act as an extension of the institutions that disability rights movement fought to overthrow. This research speaks to fervent need for criminal justice practitioners to engage with the discourses of criminalization, racialization and ableism within incarceration experiences of prisoners from an intersectional lens.