Presumption of innocence is often a myth
830 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 MoreThe sorry state of provincial jails
630 words; 3 minutes to read The recent release of a new report from the federal Correctional investigator yet again shows the many serious deficiencies in Canada’s prisons, and the indifference of the government to fix these despite many protestations...
Read MoreMajor problems in Ontario jails and courts
1000 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 MoreElection issue 2 – Why ‘tough on bail’ is bad policy
940 words; 4 minutes to read Several political leaders have recently made statements calling for making it harder, if not impossible, for people charged with certain kinds of offencss to get bail. The Conservative Party platform specifically calls for no...
Read MoreThe Hidden Epidemic of False Guilty Pleas
By Caroline Erentzen, York University and colleagues (more information at the end of the post) This post is just under 1000 words and can be read in 4-5 minutes. In the late 1980s, a series of DNA-based exonerations shook the...
Read MoreLatest data show too many people in jails and prisons
This post is about 750 words and can be read in 3 minutes. There are several annual reports that provide important data on the criminal justice system in Canada each year. One of these is the Corrections and Conditional Release...
Read MoreThe many harms of remand
This post is 600 words and can be read in 3 minutes. Jailing people after arrest – the process called remand – creates many harms. Previous posts have commented on this issue, but new research by Holly Pelvin details some...
Read MoreIntermittent Sentences Cause Big Problems in Quebec Jails
This post is about 800 words and can be read in 3-4 minutes. One result of the abolition by the previous federal government of conditional sentences (house arrest) for many crimes has been a significant increase in what are called...
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 MoreReforming criminal sentencing
In 2016, as part of a general review of criminal justice for the new federal government, the Department of Justice commissioned a set of papers on possible reforms to criminal sentencing in Canada. Five papers were published on the Department’s...
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