Tag Archive: research

The poor state of criminal justice in Canada

May 29, 2020

800 words; 4 minutes to read Just a year ago, in May, 2019, federal Justice Minister David Lametti released a report called “State of the Criminal Justice System”.  Issued in the last few months of the government’s first mandate, it...

Read More

The disappearing trial

May 21, 2020

960 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 More

How science calls into question sentencing practices

May 10, 2020

830 words; 4 minutes to read Our criminal justice system goes back well before the advent of the social sciences and the development of reliable knowledge about human behaviour.  But because it is so firmly based on precedents and past...

Read More

Predicting recidivism is hard to do

March 30, 2020

680 words; 3 minutes to read Part of the response of the criminal justice system to COVID 19 has been to release people from prison since jails and prisons are hotbeds for disease given crowded conditions.  Some provincial governments in...

Read More

Expunging criminal records

February 26, 2020

600 words; 3 minutes to read Last year Senator Kim Pate introduced a bill that would provide automatic expungement of criminal records in Canada.  Under this bill, criminal records would automatically be sealed after a certain amount of time had...

Read More

More posts worth a second look

February 7, 2020

580 words; 3 minutes to read Many previous posts on this blog continue to be highly relevant.  The problems they addressed remain as prevalent as ever.  These posts show how many of the issues in our system are well known...

Read More

New government fails on criminal justice

January 30, 2020

600 words; 3 minutes to read Those who believe in making major reforms to criminal justice in Canada were heartened a few years ago.  The new Liberal government in 2015 made many commitments to address at least some of the...

Read More

Data on Canada’s prison system

January 25, 2020

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 More

What is ‘closure’ in criminal justice?

January 8, 2020 |

850 words; 4 minutes to read ‘Providing closure’ is one of the comments we often hear in media coverage of verdicts and sentences in criminal cases.  The suggestion is that a harsh sentence provides victims of crime, or family members...

Read More