Internet info on people and crime is damaging and often inaccurate: Lageson
530 words; 2 minutes to read The internet has made it extraordinarily difficult if not impossible for anyone charged with a crime ever to get past that event. Whether people are arrested and not charged, or have charges dropped, or...
Read MoreElection issue 2 – Why ‘tough on bail’ is bad policy
940 words; 4 minutes to read Several political leaders have recently made statements calling for making it harder, if not impossible, for people charged with certain kinds of offencss to get bail. The Conservative Party platform specifically calls for no...
Read MoreElection issue 1 – Crime in Canada is decreasing
This post is 740 words. 3 minutes to read. A person who only paid attention to the media, whether newspapers or TV or radio, would get the impression that crime in Canada was running amok, virtually unchecked. It is the...
Read MoreCriminal justice and the federal election
This post is about 700 words; 3 minutes to read. Crime and the response to it is often a major issue in elections in Canada. The reasons for this have little to do with actual levels of crime and much...
Read MoreCreating more criminal law is not the answer
This post is about 1000 words and can be read in 5 minutes. One of the major problems in criminal law that rarely gets enough attention is the question of what should count as a crime in the first place. ...
Read MoreDesistance from crime is the norm
This post is about 950 words and can be reach in about 4 minutes. Increasing evidence shows that most people who commit crimes stop doing so as they get older. This finding, called one of the strongest in the whole...
Read MoreOlder prisoners face serious challenges
This post is about 650 words and can be read in 3 minutes. The number of federal prisoners over the age of 50 has increased rapidly in the last decade, now reaching more than 25%. The increase is in large...
Read MoreHow to have a more informed debate on criminal justice policy
This post is about 1060 words and can be read in 5 minutes. Under the Harper Conservatives Canada experienced a considerable toughening of criminal justice laws.These included many more mandatory minimum sentences, restrictions on parole, much more restrictive rules for...
Read MoreThe Hidden Epidemic of False Guilty Pleas
By Caroline Erentzen, York University and colleagues (more information at the end of the post) This post is just under 1000 words and can be read in 4-5 minutes. In the late 1980s, a series of DNA-based exonerations shook the...
Read MoreLatest data show too many people in jails and prisons
This post is about 750 words and can be read in 3 minutes. There are several annual reports that provide important data on the criminal justice system in Canada each year. One of these is the Corrections and Conditional Release...
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