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A criminal prosecutor discusses the illegal drug trade and the failure of the so-called “War on Drugs” to stop it. In 1971, President Richard Nixon coined the term “War on Drugs.” His campaign to eradicate illegal drug use was picked up by the media and championed by succeeding presidents, including Reagan. Canada was a willing ally in this “war,” and is currently cracking down on drug offences at a time when even the U.S. is beginning to climb down from its reliance on incarceration. Elsewhere in the world, there has been a sea change. The Global Commission on Drug Policy, including international luminaries like Kofi Annan, declared that the War on Drugs “has not, and cannot, ...
Based on first-hand interviews with survivors, people who have committed offences, and others on the frontlines, Indictment puts the Canadian criminal justice system on trial and proposes a bold new vision of transformative justice. #MeToo. Black Lives Matter. Decriminalize Drugs. No More Stolen Sisters. Stop Stranger Attacks. Do we need more cops or to defund the police? Harm reduction or treatment? Tougher sentences or prison abolition? The debate about Canada’s criminal justice system has rarely been so polarized – or so in need of fresh ideas. Indictment brings the heartrending and captivating stories of survivors and people who have committed offences to the forefront to help us und...
A passionate and meticulously researched argument against the Harper government's war on science In this arresting and passionately argued indictment, award-winning journalist Chris Turner contends that Stephen Harper's attack on basic science, science communication, environmental regulations, and the environmental NGO community is the most vicious assault ever waged by a Canadian government on the fundamental principles of the Enlightenment. From the closure of Arctic research stations as oil drilling begins in the High Arctic to slashed research budgets in agriculture, dramatic changes to the nation's fisheries policy, and the muzzling of government scientists, Harper's government has effectively dismantled Canada's long-standing scientific tradition. Drawing on interviews with scientists whose work has been halted by budget cuts and their colleagues in an NGO community increasingly treated as an enemy of the state, The War on Science paints a vivid and damning portrait of a government that has abandoned environmental stewardship and severed a nation.
On 5 July 1899 Hilda Blake, a 21-year-old maidservant in Brandon, Manitoba, who had come to Canada from England ten years earlier as an orphan immigrant, shot and killed her mistress. Two days after Christmas she was hanged, one of the few women in Canadian history to die for her crime. Blake unintentionally left a remarkable documentary record, ranging from Poorhouse records, courts dockets of custody and criminal cases in which she was the central figure, popular, journalistic, and professional assessments of her character, and a poem, 'My Downfall', that she penned in Brandon Gaol while awaiting execution. To explain why Hilda bought a gun and why she fired it, Kramer and Mitchell employe...
A call to replace Canada’s incarceration model, which has proven destructive, discriminatory, expensive, counterproductive, and — most of all — unnecessary. Imprisonment developed in the Western world as the punishment to suit all offences, from violent assault to victimless drug use. Centuries ago, incarcerating convicts represented progress on society’s part, since it came as a replacement for capital punishment, maiming, and torture. Our current model — taking away convicts’ freedom and holding them in degrading and unhealthy prison conditions — promotes recidivism and jeopardizes public safety. It is highly discriminatory, with disproportionate numbers of ethnic, indigenous, mentally ill, drug-dependent, poor, and otherwise marginalized people imprisoned. It is also ruinously expensive. Elsewhere, alternative correctional systems successfully rehabilitate offenders while treating them with dignity and respect. This book lays out the case for a complete overhaul of Canada’s ineffective incarceration model of criminal justice and for a new approach.
Prisons don’t work, but prisoners do. Prisons are often critiqued as unjust, but we hear little about the daily labour of incarcerated workers — what they do, how they do it, who they do it for and under which conditions. Unions protect workers fighting for better pay and against discrimination and occupational health and safety concerns, but prisoners are denied this protection despite being the lowest paid workers with the least choice in what they do — the most vulnerable among the working class. Starting from the perspective that work during imprisonment is not “rehabilitative,” this book examines the reasons why people should care about prison labour and how prisoners have struggled to organize for labour power in the past. Unionizing incarcerated workers is critical for both the labour movement and struggles for prison justice, this book argues, to negotiate changes to working conditions as well as the power dynamics within prisons themselves.
Crime reporting, in one form or another, is as old as crime itself. Almost all young reporters have spent some time on this beat, and their work affects all of us. Covering Canadian Crime offers a deep and detailed look at perennial issues in crime reporting and how changes in technology, business practices, and professional ethics are affecting today's crime coverage. Social media in the courtroom, the stigmatization of mental illness, the influence of police media units, the practice of knocking on victims' doors, the culture of masculinity in the newsroom: these are among the topics of discussion, explored from various disciplinary perspectives and combined with poignant interviews and thought-provoking introspection from seasoned journalists such as Christie Blatchford, Timothy Appleby, Linden MacIntyre, Kim Bolan, and Peter Edwards. A critical account of the challenges involved in crime reporting in ethical, informed, and powerful ways, Covering Canadian Crime poses the questions that reporters, journalism students, and the public at large need to ask and to answer.
Dr. John E. Foster spent many years researching and interpreting the Metis, continually re-examining his own thinking about the fur trade and the West, trying to find new lines of inquiry across disciplinary boundaries, and, playing with ideas that re-imagined the Canadian West. In From Rupert's Land to Canada, in tribute to John's work, his friends and colleagues further explore themes related to "Native History and the Fur Trade," "Metis History," and the "Imagined West". Contributors include Michael Payne, Nicole St-Onge, Jan Grabowski, Jennifer Brown, Heather Rollason, Frits Pannekoek, Heather Devine, Gerhard Ens, Gerry Friesen, Ted Binnema, Ian MacLaren, Rod Macleod, Tom Flanagan and Glen Campbell.
Social Differentiation examines the economic, political, and normatively defined relations that underlie the construction of social categories. Social differentiation, embedded in inequalities of power, status, wealth, and prestige, affects life chances of individuals as well as the allocation of resources and opportunities. Starting with a theoretical framework that challenges many traditional analyses, the contributors focus on four specific strands of social differentiation: gender, age, race/ethnicity, and locality. They explore the historically specific social practices, policies, and ideologies that produce distinct forms of inequality, in turn revealing and explaining such issues as t...