Overview

Generations of Indigenous people have experienced the injustices wrought by institutional confinement. Widespread criticism calls Canadian prisons the new residential schools and Australian ones a national tragedy. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the government itself has suggested Māori may be the most incarcerated people in the world. Handing over the Keys compares three countries with enduring records of confining Indigenous people. Intergenerational imprisonment – the legacies of institutional confinement in an array of settings – leaves a long shadow. Linda Mussell seeks the keys to transformative change through a rigorous policy analysis and interviews with frontline practitioners, policy professionals, and people who have lived experience of imprisonment. Her goal is policy transformation to address both Indigenous hyper-imprisonment and intergenerational impacts. What do people closest to this issue think? What should the state do? This urgently needed study proposes ways to hand over the keys that unlock the doors of confinement for future generations.

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9780774871266

Table of Contents

Reviews

""Extensive fieldwork that centers Indigenous lived experience, combined with rigorous theoretical and historical analysis of carceral institutions, makes Handing Over the Keys a highly engaging contribution to the growing field of research on local Indigenous sovereignty in the criminal justice space.""-- ""Thalia Anthony, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney"" ""Linda Mussell's Handing Over the Keys offers essential insights into the enduring impacts of residential schools, land theft, and child welfare and correctional systems across Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, advancing strength-based pathways toward justice and healing.""-- ""Marlyn Bennett, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Children's Wellbeing, University of Calgary""

Author Information

Linda Mussell is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Canterbury in Ōtautahi, Aotearoa (Christchurch, New Zealand). Her work on carceral politics, policies, and institutions has appeared in Contemporary Justice Review, the Canadian Journal of Law and Society, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Law and Social Policy, and Crime, Law and Social Change, among other publications.

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