CAEFS’ primary and most critical response to the Department of Justice paper, Reforming Criminal Code Defences: Provocation, Self-Defence and Defence of Property is to urge the abolition of the mandatory minimum sentence of life imprisonment. CAEFS has, since 1979, formally opposed all mandatory minimum sentences, as have many other government commissions such as the Sentencing Commission of Canada. Given the extremely serious repercussions of the mandatory minimum sentence of life imprisonment for individual women convicted of murder and for the conditions in women’s prisons, CAEFS calls for abolition of this and all other mandatory prison sentences.

First and foremost, the abolition of mandatory minimum sentences is necessary if we are to address systemic discrimination in the criminalization and imprisonment of women, members of racialized communities, people with disabilities, the poor, and lesbians and gays. While some people seem to believe that mandatory minimum sentencing amounts to “equal treatment”, this assumption is falsely simplistic.

Mandatory sentencing could only be said to be “equal treatment” if everyone had an equal chance at receiving a mandatory sentence. Everyone does not have an equal chance at receiving a mandatory prison sentence for a number of reasons. Disparity is partly created by the choice of offences that are targeted for mandatory minimums -- usually the offences disparately committed by the socio-economic underclass of society.

Further, as has been demonstrated over and over again by activists, researchers, and advocates, Aboriginal people, other racialized people, and poor people face a criminal justice system in which discretion is exercised to their disadvantage at every turn, from the investigatory and charge stage by police, to the prosecutorial decisions made by Crown attorneys, to the trial and sentence decisions by judges, to the penal practices, including discipline of prison authorities, through to the parole determinations made by the parole board.

There are also significant numbers of people with cognitive and psychiatric disabilities who are caught up in the criminal justice system, and for whom stereotypes and discriminatory practices play a role in their conviction and exposure to mandatory sentences of incarceration. Moreover, the available evidence indicates a Crown preference for first degree murder charges against women who kill their mates, when either no charges or a manslaughter charge would be warranted on all the evidence.

Given the reality that most women who use lethal force to prevent an attack by an abusive partner are also the first to notify police of the death and their involvement, their own actions are frequently used by Crown prosecutors as the basis for laying first degree murder charges. It is neither logical nor just to allow the gendered context that gives rise to the decision to lay first degree murder charges against such women to dictate a minimum sentence of life imprisonment.

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.