How science calls into question sentencing practices

May 10, 2020

830 words; 4 minutes to read Our criminal justice system goes back well before the advent of the social sciences and the development of reliable knowledge about human behaviour.  But because it is so firmly based on precedents and past...

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Prison Experience – Part 2 – Assessment

May 5, 2020

1250 words; 5 minutes to read By Anonymous (Work sent to us by a former prisoner who does not wish to be identified) Part 1 can be found here. If you are sentenced in Canada to more than two years...

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Is everyone a criminal? Looks like it…

April 4, 2020

900 words; 4 minutes to read Most of us think about ‘criminals’ as being a small subset of the Canadian population – people who are dangerous and need to be punished, locked up or kept away from the rest of...

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Predicting recidivism is hard to do

March 30, 2020

680 words; 3 minutes to read Part of the response of the criminal justice system to COVID 19 has been to release people from prison since jails and prisons are hotbeds for disease given crowded conditions.  Some provincial governments in...

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Prison Experience – Part 1

March 23, 2020

700 words 3 minutes to read By Anonymous (Work sent to us by a former prisoner who does not wish to be identified) I ‘did time’ in several prisons in Canada a few years ago.  First, I had nearly 3...

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Presumption of innocence is often a myth

March 16, 2020

830 words; 4 minutes to read We are told, and believe, that the presumption of innocence is a core concept in Canadian law.  Nobody is or should be presumed guilty until they plead guilty or are convicted in a court...

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