Handing Over the Keys

Generations of Indigenous people have experienced the injustices wrought by institutional confinement. Widespread criticism calls Canadian prisons the new residential schools and Australian ones a national tragedy. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the government itself has suggested Maori may be the most incarcerated people in the world. Handing over the Keys compares three countries with enduring records of confining Indigenous people.

Intergenerational imprisonment – the legacies of institutional confinement in an array of settings – leaves a long shadow. Linda Mussell seeks the keys to transformative change through a rigorous policy analysis and interviews with frontline practitioners, policy professionals, and people who have lived experience of imprisonment. Her goal is policy transformation to address both Indigenous hyper-imprisonment and intergenerational impacts.

What do people closest to this issue think? What should the state do? This urgently needed study proposes ways to hand over the keys that unlock the doors of confinement for future generations.