Prisoners’ stories – Breakfast at Timmie’s – Part I
This post is about 1000 words and can be read in about 4 minutes. This is the first part of a story sent to us by a prisoner at a Quebec federal prison, describing a visit to an Aboriginal healing...
Read MoreSenate committee confirms major problems in Canadian prisons
This post is about 550 words and can be read in 2-3 minutes. For the past two years, the Senate Committee on Human Rights has been inquiring into “respect for the human rights of federally-sentenced persons in the federal correctional...
Read MoreGood resource: Speakers on criminal justice in Canada
This post is about 400 words and can be read in 2 minutes. Many voluntary organizations across Canada do excellent work in the field of criminal justice (see previous post on some of them). Since 2010, a Toronto church, Eglinton-St....
Read MoreReducing crime by supporting people after release
This post is about 100 words and can be read in about 5 minutes. Everybody wants a world in which there is less crime. That is why rehabilitation is one of the main official purposes of the criminal justice system. ...
Read MoreGlobe and Mail coverage of prison reform
This post is about 1150 words and can be read in 5-6 minutes. On Nov 6, the Globe and Mail newspaper ran an editorial called “Fixing solitary isn’t enough. Canada’s prisons need to be reformed top to bottom”. The editorial...
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 MoreMissed Opportunities: Young Adults in Federal Prisons
This post is about 640 words and can be read in 3 minutes. The Canadian federal prison system is missing many opportunities to work more effectively with young people in federal prisons, according to a report issued in 2017 by...
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 MoreRace, Crime and Justice in Canada
We have a lot of data showing that Indigenous and Black people are the subjects of unfair treatment throughout the criminal justice system, from contact with police to sentencing and parole. That evidence is well summarized in a recent (2014)...
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