In the 1790s, penal reformers rebuilt America’s squalid jails as airy, hygienic places meant to keep residents – and by extension society – healthy. Now they’re hotbeds of COVID-19. What went wrong?
Marijuana decriminalization won’t end arrests.
Gleti/Getty Images
Decriminalizing medical and recreational marijuana may exacerbate racial inequality within the criminal justice system, among other things.
Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein (centre) has been convicted of rape in the third degree and a criminal sex act in the first degree.
AAP/EPA/Justin Lane
Achieving justice in response to sexual violence is complex, and we should treat the Weinstein conviction with some caution.
New research shows that Canadians who live in rural areas hold more punitive attitudes about crime and how to control it than their urban counterparts.
(Pixabay)
Those living in rural areas have more punitive attitudes toward crime and how to control it than city-dwellers, and it’s a major component of the growing urban-rural divide in Canada.
Seventy-eight percent of the people executed for witchcraft in New England in the late 17th and early 18th centuries were women.
Jef Thompson/Shutterstock.com
The debate about the reliability of forensic evidence reflects a lack of understanding of how forensic science is best used in the justice system, rather than a problem with forensic science itself.
With the right support, women in prison or whose children are in care can breastfeed. But there are challenges.
from www.shutterstock.com
Supporting mums in prison and whose babies are in care to breastfeed has benefits for mums, their children and wider society.
We have such romantic notions of being finally appreciated on Mother’s Day that some mothers feel disappointed. Perhaps we should shift the idea of what Mother’s Day can be.
Bruno Nascimento/Unsplash
Indistinct forensic audio is often ‘enhanced’ to make it sound clearer. But how effective are the techniques that are used? A new experiment suggests they can be highly misleading.
Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould holds a press conference in the foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, March 29, 2018, regarding the criminal justice system.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Bill C-75 was introduced to the House as a way to fix issues with the criminal justice system. However, an unintended consequence is that low-income people will lose access to law school clinics.
Concrete action steps are needed to help reconciliation, says a research team that offers 12 actionable ideas. Here Ben Paul, of the Musqueam First Nation, sings and plays a drum during the Walk for Reconciliation in Vancouver, B.C., on Sept. 24, 2017, held to promote positive relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
It’s been three years since the TRC released its report on the lasting impact of residential schools in Canada but responses to the 94 Calls to Action have been slow. A new framework hopes to change that.
President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Programs that allow individuals to be supervised in the community instead of in prison are growing in a way that is not sustainable and is contributing to mass incarceration rather than relieving it.
The U.S. leads the world in the rate of incarceration.
kittirat roekburi/www.shutterstock.com
Stanley Andrisse was once branded a career criminal and served time in prison. Today, he is a professor at two medical schools and an advocate for higher education for those who’ve served time.
The appointment of South Africa’s national prosecutions head Shaun Abrahams has been declared invalid.
EPA/Nic Bothma
South Africa’s Constitutional Court judgment shows concern that the independence of the country’s prosecuting authority has been compromised.
Activists protest in Barcelona, Spain on June 21, 2018. A Spanish court triggered a new wave of outrage by granting bail to five men acquitted of gang rape and convicted instead on a lesser felony of sexual abuse, a case that has shocked Spain.
(AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Germaine Greer’s recent comments about the punishments for rape show the need for more complex, evidence-based discussions about trauma and the criminal justice system.
Preliminary research into the Chess for Life Program in Alberta, Canada, shows that youth who are sentenced to chess instruction after committing non-violent crimes are learning useful life skills.
(Shutterstock)
In Alberta, an alternative initiative sees youth who commit non-violent crimes sentenced to 25 hours of chess instruction with a University of Lethbridge professor.