Data on Canada’s prison system
900 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 MoreCan Canadian prisons be improved?
This post is 800 words and can be read in about 4 minutes. The new head of the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) has been given a huge mandate for change in that organization, which operates Canada’s federal prisons and...
Read MoreFinancial facts on Canadian prisons
This post is about 600 words and can be read in 3 minutes. Canada’s jail and prison system is expensive. Here are some facts: Total spending and comparisons Total (federal, provincial and municipal) public spending on criminal justice in Canada...
Read MoreEverything you were never taught about Canada’s prison system
This post is about 700 words and takes 3 minutes to read. About a year ago, a website called intersectionalanalyst.com published a piece on Canada’s prison system. The website describes itself as “Making sense of complex social problems through information...
Read MoreSuicide in prisons: An international comparison
This post is 700 words and will take 3 minutes to read. Suicide rates among people in prison are dramatically higher than those in the general population, although this varies greatly among countries. This is the conclusion of a recent...
Read MoreThe Prison Book Club
Ann Walmsley’s book, The Prison Book Club, is about her experience with a book club that began at Collins Bay Institution and then extended to several other federal prisons Book clubs have become integral parts of many prisons in several...
Read MorePrisontalk.com: A great information source on all things having to do with imprisonment
Reliable information on Canadian prisons and jails is hard to come by. You would think that an institution that deals with many thousands of people each year plus their families and friends, almost always involving a high degree of anxiety,...
Read MorePrisoners’ Stories – 2: Nine lives, 6 months, and 21 days
I.M. GRENADA “Well?” My question pounces with all the subtlety of the Spanish Inquisition. Its target, my 62 year-old cell-dwelling neighbour, Gaton (name changed to protect identity), had just returned from 2 hours and 40 minutes of cerebral ping pong...
Read MoreFederal Prisoners Call for Reform
Prisoners have a lot of useful things to say, even if they are rarely asked, about how to improve the criminal justice system. Here’s a slightly edited version of a good recent example: October 19, 2017 (Algonquin Territory / Ottawa)...
Read MoreWomen need health care to stay out of prison
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Patricia Jansen, Mo Korchinski, Ruth Elwood Martin, all from the University of British Columbia “What I have done is not who I am. Most of us are emotionally...
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