John Howard Canada adds podcast series

April 4, 2020 |

John Howard Canada is creating a series of podcasts in which former prisoners talk about their experience in prison and re-entering the community. “Voices Inside and Out” talks with people who’ve actually walked through those gates; their personal stories and...

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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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German prisons better and cheaper

March 6, 2020

Post #126  830 words; 4 minutes to read   Canada’s Correctional Investigator recently released yet another annual report drawing attention to some of the terrible conditions in Canada’s prisons, and the seeming indifference, if not outright opposition, of the government...

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Expunging criminal records

February 26, 2020 |

600 words; 3 minutes to read Last year Senator Kim Pate introduced a bill that would provide automatic expungement of criminal records in Canada.  Under this bill, criminal records would automatically be sealed after a certain amount of time had...

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