Sacred Healings through Telling Story: Lessons from the Sacred Grounds

Abstract

In Canada, women—in particular, Indigenous women—comprise the fastest growing population of those who are sentenced. These trends are evidence of the continued impact of colonialism and the residential school legacy that has been well documented by scholars in varying degrees and at all levels of the Canadian criminal justice system. However, changes to address discrimination and overrepresentation have mostly resulted in changes within the current system rather than changes to the system itself. Attempts to “indigenize the white system” through training, programming, legislation, employment, and funding continue to reinforce colonialism and fail those who are Indigenous, especially women and girls. In acknowledgment of such harm, Elizabeth Fry Peel-Halton and Correctional Services Canada (CSC) collaborated with local Elder, Little Brown Bear (Ernest W. Matton), to create space where women could participate in traditional sweat lodge ceremony and healing away from correctional facilities, with the goal of providing a more authentic experience for Indigenous women and other women who are sentenced. While there are sweat lodges at both federal and provincial facilities, the Sacred Grounds are the first off-site (i.e., away from the correctional institution) space like this in Canada. This research explores the ways the Sacred Grounds possibly reduces the settler-colonial imperatives of traditional bricks and bars corrections and may encourage and support women’s stories of resilience and reconciliation.