E/CN.4/2004/80 page 11 28. Aboriginal citizens in detention are also prone to suffer violence. In 2000, for example, police officers were accused of abandoning two indigenous men to freeze to death on the outskirts of Saskatoon. A survey by Correctional Service of Canada pointed out that abuse played a more widespread part in the lives of Aboriginal women inmates compared to non-native women. In 1996, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada reported that, “Aboriginal women with status under the Indian Act and who are between the ages of 25 and 44 are five times more likely to experience a violent death than other Canadian women in the same age category”.11 29. In the United States, in the State of Alaska, Natives regularly comprise 34 per cent of all prisoners although they represent only 17 per cent of the population. Adult Native Alaskans are incarcerated at a rate 3.2 times higher than that of white Alaskans and Native Alaskan juveniles are 1.8 times as likely to be adjudicated delinquent as white juveniles. Many people do not speak English well enough to understand court publications, forms and in-court proceedings. However, judges are not trained to know when a language interpreter is needed, how to decide if a particular interpreter is qualified, or how to use interpreters in court. Interpreters are not trained in legal proceedings neither are they monitored. Moreover, judges and court system personnel do not receive regular cross-cultural training about indigenous peoples in their area.12 30. The overrepresentation of indigenous people in corrective institutions is often linked to overpolicing in areas where indigenous persons live and to the intense focus by enforcement bodies on indigenous activities, which leads to higher levels of arrests. Studies show that indigenous people are overrepresented in court, are charged with more offences than non-indigenous, are more likely to be denied bail, spend less time with their lawyers and receive higher sentences when pleading guilty.13 Indifference by law enforcement bodies to complaints by indigenous people can also be discriminatory, as seen in a pattern of poor police responses to complaints about violence and other disturbances. One reason suggested is the perception that domestic violence is part of Aboriginal culture or a “tribal norm”; others blame racist stereotypes by Whites that indigenous people do not deserve police protection.14 31. Whereas the Government of New Zealand reports that there is no strong evidence of discrimination against Maori defendants in court, an official study recommends that “strategies need to be developed to eliminate negative attitudes, to avoid the over-policing of Maori ...”.15 Because Maori continue to be overrepresented in crime statistics, the Government has put in place a Crime Reduction Strategy (CRS) to address these issues.16 32. Violence against indigenous people, and particularly women and youth, is widespread in numerous countries, and only in some States are judicial inquiries held to investigate accusations of such violence. In the countries he has visited on official missions, the Special Rapporteur has received numerous reports about violence and physical abuse of indigenous people by local authorities, law enforcement agencies, military units, vigilante groups, paramilitaries and private armed squads. Similar complaints are presented regularly by indigenous and human rights organizations to the relevant international bodies. They express a serious pattern of human rights violations of indigenous people that must be addressed squarely by the justice system wherever it occurs. 33. Reports on the situation of indigenous people in detention suggest that they are held in overcrowded prisons where conditions are frequently below standard, that they are not provided with basic health and other services, in violation of international principles for the treatment of