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The Gladue Project:
Making a Difference
in the Criminal Justice System
By Dr. David Milward
In 1991, the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba (AJI) released its final report criticizing the
criminal justice system’s treatment of Aboriginal peoples. It noted that Aboriginal peoples
are likely to be over-scrutinized as suspects of crime, vastly over-represented in prisons,
and under-protected as victims. As one measure to address the over-incarceration
of Aboriginal people, a section of the Criminal Code added in the mid 1990s
requires that sentencing judges across Canada consider “all available
sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in
the circumstances…with particular attention to the
circumstances of Aboriginal offenders.”