From Riches to Restorative Justice
By Joseph Grmovsek 1270 words; 5 minutes to read I was torn about how to begin this article. Do I grab the attention of readers by describing the story behind my decade-and-a-half career insider trading in Canada and the United...
Read MoreElectronic ankle monitors have serious problems
760 words; 3 minutes to read One of the alternatives increasingly considered – and used – instead of jailing people is the use of electronic monitors. These can be an alternative for bail; people charged with a crime can return...
Read MoreThousands of Canadians affected by unnecessary arrests
Recently, TV Ontario aired a documentary called “The Arrest”, about several Canadian cases in which people sued the police for wrongful arrest. The film shows a lot of footage of the actual arrests but also shows the lasting damage to...
Read MorePrison Experience – Part 2 – Assessment unit, continued
1200 words; 5 minutes to read (Work sent to us by a former prisoner who does not wish to be identified. Previous section can be found here. ) My dominant recollection of my 11 weeks in a federal prison assessment...
Read MoreVoices Inside and Out 001
Co-hosts Catherine Latimer, Executive Director of the John Howard Society of Canada, and Lawrence Da Silva - a man who served 19 years in Canada’s penitentiary system, explore concepts around successful release and the problems and stigmas attached to community reintegration.
Read MoreThe poor state of criminal justice in Canada
800 words; 4 minutes to read Just a year ago, in May, 2019, federal Justice Minister David Lametti released a report called “State of the Criminal Justice System”. Issued in the last few months of the government’s first mandate, it...
Read MoreThe disappearing trial
960 words; 4 minutes to read The right to a fair trial is perhaps the most central aspect of criminal justice. Yet, as shown in a recent report by Fair Trials, an international organization committed to human rights in criminal...
Read MoreHow science calls into question sentencing practices
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...
Read MorePrison Experience – Part 2 – Assessment
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...
Read MoreThe state of Canadian prisons – Correctional Investigator’s Report, 2018-19
900 words; 4 minutes to read The annual reports by Canada’s Correctional Investigator (CI) provide a unique lens into conditions in Canada’s federal prisons. Both the current Investigator, Ivan Zinger, and his predecessor, Howard Sapers, along with their staff, have...
Read More