Committed to justice and equality.
The Sentencing and Parole Project (SPP) is a non-profit organization that prepares enhanced pre-sentence reports (EPSRs) for Black people marginalized by poverty and racial inequality. Our work has built upon the use of the reports in Nova Scotia where they are ordered by the judiciary to assist with the sentencing of marginalized Black people.
The reports give judges and parole boards the information they need to make informed sentencing and release decisions. They include recommendations for culturally appropriate programs to assist with rehabilitation.
The SPP is founded by experienced counsel: criminal lawyers Faisal Mirza and Emily Lam, and human-rights lawyer Anthony Morgan.
Share the personal histories of individuals grounded in specific biographical information coupled with research and data about the impact of anti-Black racism.
Sentencing is about judging a fellow human being. The more a sentencing judge truly knows about the offender, the more exact and proportionate the sentence can be. Sometimes it should include a broad swath of relevant historical, social, and cultural knowledge. An IRCA gives the judge an opportunity to learn about how this relates to the offender. A sentence imposed based upon a complex and in-depth knowledge of the person before the court, as they are situated in the past and present reality of their lived experience, will look very different from a sentence imposed upon a cardboard cut-out of an “offender”
— Justice Nakatsuru, R v Jackson, 2018 ONSC 2527
Provide legal education and training about systemic racism to justice system participants.
The Working Group is particularly concerned about the overrepresentation of African Canadians in the criminal justice system, which may be attributed to racial bias at all levels of the system, from racial profiling to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, the imposition of pretrial incarceration and disparities in sentencing.
— United Nations General Assembly, Report of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on Its Mission to Canada
Improving knowledge about the factors that contribute to the over-representation of racialized people in the criminal justice system and mistreatment in prisons.
In 2013, the Office released “A Case Study of Diversity in Corrections: The Black Inmate Experience in Federal Penitentiaries.” At that time, the Office reported that Black inmates comprised 9.5% of the inmate population while representing just 3% of the Canadian population. The report also noted that Black inmates were over-represented in maximum security and segregation, incurred a disproportionate number of institutional charges, and were more likely to be involved in incidents of use of force. Although CSC’s response to the Office’s report was positive overall, four years later very little appears to have changed for Black people in federal custody
— Office of Correctional Investigator, Annual Report (2016-2017)
Contact Us.
To inquire about EPSRs or for general inquiries about the SPP, please feel free to contact us.