Not long after working on the streets, Lerat ended up in Pinegrove, a women’s correctional center in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.
“[At first] I was terrified. But then they spray that stuff on you, and then you take a bath and wash it off. Then I went into the unit they put me in”, Lerat said. “Here are my cousins, my older cousins. They were the ones I looked up to, the ones who took care of themselves, didn’t wait and fought against the system and everything else in our family. So I followed along.”
Most of Lerat’s charges were related to prostitution and unpaid fines from those charges. Then the charges became Failure to Appear, because, as Lerat says, she “was trained to stay up all night and watch the house and sleep during the day” so she never made it to court in the morning.
According to the Correctional Investigator of Canada Howard Sapers, the high rate of incarceration for indigenous people is linked to systemic discrimination, economic and social disadvantage, substance abuse, violence and trauma.