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 More960 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 More850 words; 4 minutes to read The previous post discussed white collar crime generally; this one focuses on Canada. We lack good information about the extent of white collar crime and prosecution in Canada. Still, according to federal Criminal Intelligence...
Read More900 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...
Read More830 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...
Read More900 words; 4 minute read. The annual performance monitoring report of the Parole Board of Canada is one of the best regular sources of data about criminal justice in Canada – a field where our data are generally quite weak....
Read More1000 words; 5 minutes to read. A recent report on the Ontario Ministry of Corrections by the Auditor General found significant problems that involve not just waste of public money, but even more seriously, negative consequences for many people enmeshed...
Read More930 words; 4 minutes to read Some people are found guilty of crimes they did not commit, and many more people plead guilty to specific charges that are inaccurate. Yet once someone has pled guilty or been convicted, we seem...
Read MoreThe Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) is a champion for civil rights in all areas of Canadian life. Criminal justice is one of its focus areas. The organization has been very active in mounting court challenges around some of the...
Read More950 words; 4 minutes to read. A fundamental aspect of justice in Canada is that any accused person has the right to make a proper defense. In practice, this right does not exist for most Canadians because they cannot afford...
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