{"id":3530,"date":"2025-11-28T08:58:50","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T13:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/?p=3530"},"modified":"2026-02-09T11:14:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T16:14:33","slug":"strengthening-indigenous-justice-one-life-story-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/2025\/strengthening-indigenous-justice-one-life-story-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Strengthening Indigenous Justice: One Life Story at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Strengthening Indigenous Justice: One Life Story at a Time\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

Field Notes <\/strong>
Jane Dickson, Law and Legal Studies<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jane
Photo by Bryan Gagnon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jane Dickson\u2019s work focuses on strengthening Indigenous access to justice through the development, training, and evaluation of Gladue reports and culturally informed sentencing practices.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Can you offer a \u201clay\u201d description of your research topic?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\u202fresearch area is Indigenous access to justice, most notably in the criminal justice sphere and with a focus on what are called the \u2018Gladue principles\u2019 across the criminal justice system and increasingly, into other areas of law as well. These principles require the courts to consider the unique background and circumstances of an Indigenous person and any alternatives to incarceration that are reasonable given the offence and degree of culpability of the offender<\/em>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ideally, this information is provided to the courts in the form of a Gladue report. I train people to write these reports and have completed several research projects on the impacts of those reports and the Gladue principles more generally; I have also evaluated some of the largest Gladue service providers in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What piqued your interest in this topic? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u202fMy research\u202foriginally\u202ffocused\u202fon the reclamation of\u202fIndigenous\u202flaw and legal\u202fstructures\u202fthrough the revitalization and implementation of that law\u202fand\u202fstructures\u202fwithin\u202fFirst Nations.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, It quickly became apparent\u202fthat outside governments were supportive of \u2018restorative justice projects\u2019 but much less so of the reinstitution of traditional law. This led to me shift my attention to addressing inequities in the colonial system and to focus on Gladue, sentencing and pushing back on the mass incarceration of Indigenous people in Canada.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What question were you hoping to answer in your research?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u202fBroadly speaking, how\u202fcan we better respect and support Indigenous justice systems within\u202fIndigenous\u202fnations\u202fand\u202fmaximize\u202faccess\u202fto justice for Indigenous citizens who\u202fbecome\u202finvolved\u202fwith\u202fthe colonial justice system?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is something people would be surprised to learn?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Law and\u202fLegal\u202fStudies houses the Ottawa Pro Bono Gladue\u202fProject, which I run with my former graduate student, Kerry MacDonell. We have a group of certified Gladue writers who volunteer to provide reports to Indigenous people in the Ottawa-Kingston area; we are now also supporting people across Canada, which is very exciting and keeps us very busy.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the biggest misconception about your research area?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest misconception is that Gladue considerations are a \u2018get out of jail free card\u2019 – since the advent of Gladue in 1999, rates of incarceration of Indigenous people have continued to climb. Since 2000\/2001, the incarcerated Indigenous population has risen by 56.2% <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any new projects that you\u2019re excited about?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a few very exciting projects on the horizon, but will just mention one, which is a research project to support\u202fthe\u202fdevelopment\u202fof national standards for\u202fGladue reports, Gladue writers and Gladue training. This is important to me as a Gladue writer, educator and ally of Indigenous people who understands the challenges of this work and the magnitude of task Gladue is intended to address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s your favourite class to teach?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a tough question! I like teaching first year very much but am presently also enjoying teaching my fourth-year seminar, which exposes students to the research on Gladue and to those working with Gladue in the system. I am fortunate to have a number of amazing guest speakers, including the Chief of the Ottawa Police Service, Indigenous and non-Indigenous senior Judges and Justices of the Peace of the Ontario Court of Justice, Crown and defence counsel, Gladue writers, and the Director of Special Projects at the Office of the Federal Correctional Investigator. It is a great blend of theory and practice. The course has also opened up employment opportunities for some of my students and helped others to locate mentors and resources to assist them with careers in the law and legal services.\u202f <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Field Notes Jane Dickson, Law and Legal Studies Jane Dickson\u2019s work focuses on strengthening Indigenous access to justice through the development, training, and evaluation of Gladue reports and culturally informed sentencing practices. Can you offer a \u201clay\u201d description of your research topic?  My\u202fresearch area is Indigenous access to justice, most notably in the criminal justice sphere and with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":3658,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[63,62],"tags":[258,248],"class_list":["post-3530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-field-notes","category-research","tag-law-and-legal-studies","tag-research"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3530"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3706,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530\/revisions\/3706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fpga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}