Even among federal prisoners who are serving mandatory life sentences for murder, Aboriginal and other racialized offenders are disadvantaged by systemic racism with respect to the conditions under which they serve their sentences, such as security classification and prison discipline, which in turn affect their chances of release on parole and thus the ultimate length of their life sentences. Given what we know about systemic racism in prison discipline in provincial institutions (Racism Behind Bars, 1994) and in light of Madam Justice Arbour’s comments about the federal prison culture and disregard for the law in her Inquiry into Events at the Prison for Women (Arbour, 1996), we know that racism is carried over from the decisions of police, prosecutors, and judges to those who administer sentences of imprisonment and the terms of parole in federal institutions as well. Cognitive and psychiatric disabilities also generally weigh against an accused in the prison classification process and correctional programming, not to mention the availability of parole.

Not surprisingly, in jurisdictions that have attempted to gauge the impact of mandatory sentencing laws, the results indicate consistently that minority groups are the ones targeted by these laws.

In Australia, emerging evidence is documenting what we already know. Mandatory sentences are invoked disproportionately for Aboriginal peoples, with crushing results (Thomson, 1999-2000). In the Northern Territories, since 1997 when mandatory sentencing laws were introduced, judicial use of non-custodial dispositions has declined dramatically and a corresponding increase in the imprisonment of Aboriginal adults and youths has been documented (Howse, 1999 at 227-28). In Western Australia, as of 1999, 50 children between 11 and 17 years of age have been sentenced to mandatory sentences of one year in prison (Bayes, 1999 at 287).

Australian analysts note that Aboriginal people are disparately affected by the mandatory sentencing laws in part because police enjoy a very high --90 %-- “charge clearance” rate in Aboriginal communities. Police have an easy time here because many Aboriginal people will tell police who was responsible, and will also readily make statements to police that are used to charge them (Howse, 1999 at 226), much like battered women who have killed their violent partners.

It is also clear that Aboriginal and other disempowered groups will be disparately affected by mandatory sentencing laws because they will not have the resources to influence the police charging decisions, nor will they have much to bargain with regarding a possible sentence deal with the prosecutor. It is therefore quite predictable that young people from Aboriginal communities appear to be the hardest hit in the two Australian jurisdictions using mandatory sentencing, since they have neither the resources nor the information with which to strike a deal. Recent research in Western Australia indicates that “Aboriginal children constituted a staggering 80 per cent of the three strikes cases in the Children’s Court of Western Australia from February 1997 to May 1998" (Morgan, 1999 at 277). The implications for these communities resonate with the practices of colonization: “Another generation of indigenous young people are being taken away from their families, from their communities and from their land” (Goldflam and Hunyor, 1999 at 215). These authors continue:

The unacceptable level of property crime [i]n some Aboriginal communities is a product of specific social, historical and economic conditions. Mandatory sentencing can only serve to perpetuate the underlying causes of the high levels of property crime in those communities. With young men being removed for lengthy stretches of time, the disruption to the ceremonial life of a community is just one way in which the fabric of such communities will continue to be undermined. (Goldflam and Hunyor, 1999 at 215).