Do prosecutors have too much discretion?
This post is about 750 words and can be read in 3 minutes. More than 90% of criminal charges in Canada never go to trial. They are either dropped by the Crown or the accused pleads guilty to something. This...
Read MoreStormy ways or sunny weather? Prisoners’ views of Canadian prisons
This post is about 1000 words and can be read in about 5 minutes. One of the best ways of understanding the state of an institution is to listen to the people who inhabit it. We learn about the reality...
Read MoreNew book on Indigenous issues in the Canadian justice system
This post is about 600 words and can be read in 3 minutes. Everyone involved in criminal justice is aware of the dramatic over-representation of Indigenous people in Canada’s criminal justice system and prisons. But despite all the attention,...
Read MoreFalling Crime Rates in Many Countries
This post is under 800 words and can be read in about 4 minutes. Although many Canadians don’t seem to believe this – perhaps because so much media coverage is about crime – crime rates in Canada have fallen dramatically...
Read MoreHow to Have Fewer Wrongful Convictions
This blog is about 1200 words and takes about 5 minutes to read. Canada should make a series of changes to laws and criminal justice procedures in order to prevent more people from being convicted of crimes which they did...
Read MoreCanadians don’t like mandatory minimum sentences
This post is about 700 words and takes 3-4 minutes to read. The Liberal government elected in 2015 had as one of its election commitments ending mandatory minimum (MM) sentences for various crimes. Although the first mandatory minimums were put...
Read MoreSeeing crime as a public health issue: Gregg Caruso
This post is about 950 words and will take 4-5 minutes to read. Gregg Caruso’s short and readable book, Public Health and Safety: The Social Determinants of Health and Criminal Behavior, available free online, makes the argument for thinking about...
Read More3% Doing Time for Murder Didn’t Do Crime: James Lockyer
Heidi Riedner At least 3 per cent of convicted murderers in prison are innocent, according to one of the country’s most prominent social justice activists. “That’s a lot of people in Canadian prisons for murders they didn’t commit,” lawyer James...
Read MoreOvercriminalization
By Melissa Hamilton Troubles arise when a society has too many laws, a sort of legal inflation or legal creep. When the situation regards too many criminal laws, the more specific term is overcriminalization. It is worse than other forms...
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