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Members of racial, ethnic, and Indigenous minorities have long accounted for disproportionate percentages of prison admissions in Western nations and of prison populations. The minorities affected vary between countries. Discriminatory or differential treatment by criminal justice officials from policing through to parole is part of the problem. Much media and professional attention focuses on sentencing, where the decision-making is most public. An emerging body of research identifies sentencing as a cause—or, at the very least, an amplifier—of minority overincarceration. Solutions aiming to reduce it have been implemented, with varying but modest degrees of success, in the United States, England and Wales, Canada, and Aotearoa New Zealand. Progress toward reducing minority overincarceration has been slow. Most US sentencing commissions have failed to determine the extent to which their guidelines contribute to the problem. The Sentencing Council of England and Wales has taken the limited step of warning judges about racial disparities, without suggesting remedial steps to be taken. Courts in Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand have taken more activist approaches, mitigating sentences when offenders adduce evidence of discrimination or abuse by criminal justice officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sentencing in Canada is beset by many problems, yet one weakness stands above the rest: the disproportionately high rates of Aboriginal incarceration. This article documents current and historical trends in levels of Aboriginal incarceration at the provincial/territorial and federal levels since 1978. We pay particular attention to the years following two important Supreme Court judgements (in 1999 and 2012) that directed the courts to use custody with greater restraint when sentencing an Aboriginal offender. The primary data derive from the annual Adult Correctional Services survey conducted by Statistics Canada. In 2014, Aboriginal persons accounted for just over one quarter of all provincial and territorial admissions, significantly higher than the percentage recorded in 1978 (16%). In fact, over the past 20 years, all jurisdictions save one have experienced an increase in the percentage of Aboriginal admissions to provincial and territorial correctional institutions. Despite judgements from the Supreme Court and provincial courts of appeal, as well as several other remedial interventions, such as the creation of so-called Gladue courts and an alternate form of custody that would be served in the community, the problem of Aboriginal over-incarceration has worsened, not improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Criminal Law Review is the property of Carswell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Criminal Law Review is the property of Carswell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Youth Criminal Justice Act (2003) was enacted with the intent of decreasing the use of courts and restricting the use of custody for adolescent offenders, while improving the effectiveness of the responses to serious violent youth offenders. This paper assesses the impact of the act in its first five years. It reviews salient provisions of the act dealing with sentencing and diversion, discusses Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence interpreting the act, and presents statistical data on the impact of the YCJA on diversion and sentencing of youth and on youth court and custodial caseloads. The Supreme Court has narrowly interpreted the provisions of the YCJA that allow for the use of custody, contributing to a reduction in use of custody. The Court has also emphasized that youth are to be treated differently from adults and ruled unconstitutional provisions of the YCJA that created a presumption of adult sentencing for the most serious offences by young offenders, limiting the effect of provisions of the act directed at serious violent offenders. The YCJA has succeeded in significantly reducing the rates of use of court and custody, without increasing recorded youth crime. There continue to be significant regional variations in rates of use of youth courts and custody. Although regional differences in the use of court have declined under the YCJA, variation in the use of custody has not been significantly affected by the new act. Youth crime remains a contentious political concern in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports findings from two representative public-opinion surveys that explored Canadians’ attitudes toward three important sentencing issues: the severity of sentencing; the purposes of sentencing; and mandatory sentences of imprisonment. As has been found by polls over the past 30 years, most Canadians believe that sentencing practices are too lenient. The same result emerged from a poll conducted in 2005: 74% of respondents held the view that sentencing is too lenient – a finding consistent with polls conducted throughout the 1980s. With respect to the purposes of sentencing, strongest public support emerged for the restorative sentencing objectives of promoting a sense of responsibility in the offender and securing reparation for the crime victim. There was less support for the more traditional purposes of deterrence and incapacitation. This finding represents a marked contrast to findings from the last survey that evaluated public reaction to sentencing purposes (in 1985). Slightly more than half the sample in 2005 expressed support for mandatory sentencing – a result consistent with opinion surveys from the United States and Australia. However, there was strong public support for mandatory sentencing legislation that also permits a limited degree of judicial discretion. The public appear aware of the dangers of an absolute mandatory sentence of imprisonment and support mandatory sentences in which courts may impose a lesser sentence where exceptional circumstances exist. The implications of these findings for sentencing policy in Canada are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the juvenile justice system in Canada. Reforms of juvenile justice system in Canada; Law and legislation for juvenile correctness in Canada; Principles of sentencing young offenders in Canada.

In Canada, illicit drug use and addiction have traditionally been considered as a criminal justice problem and have been addressed from a legal perspective. Over the past century, a medical approach to drug addiction has slowly crept into the criminal justice processing of drug offenders. This has happened through the combination of principles of punishment with principles of addiction treatment in the sentencing of drug offenders to create a distinct application of 'compulsory drug treatment' in Canada. However, this evolution has occurred sporadically over time, with punishment and coercion as predominantly the main approach to dealing with this population. This evolution has recently culminated in Canada with the development of two criminal justice approaches to dealing with the substance use problems of drug offenders that incorporate concepts of punishment and treatment more equally than ever before - conditional sentencing and drug courts. This paper outlines the historical evolution of concepts of 'compulsory treatment', discusses such examples of contemporary 'compulsory treatment' as conditional sentencing and drug courts, and analyses the implications, concerns and challenges associated with these tools currently used in the sentencing of drug offenders in the Canadian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the findings from a representative national survey of the public, which permitted comparisons between the sentencing preferences of the public and the actual practice of youth courts. Attitudes toward sentencing juvenile offenders in Canada; Comparison of public sentencing preferences and judicial practice; Relationship between punitiveness and victimization theory.

Comments on the incorporation of public opinion into sentencing or parole systems in Canada. Exacerbation of criticism of the criminal justice system; Misperception of the public on the severity of sentences imposed; Increase of the number of prisoners serving life terms.

Discusses developments in conditional sentencing in Canada. Conditional sentence for an offender who poses a risk to the community; Combination of a conditional sentence with a term of custody; Supervision of offenders serving conditional sentences; Empirical research on conditional sentencing; Politics of sentencing reform.

Discusses the evolution of conditional sentencing in Canada. Nature of a conditional sentence; Changes to the practice of conditional sentencing; Relationship between duration, conditions and response to unjustified breach; Impact of the R. v. Proulx judgment on the number of conditioned sentences imposed; Conditional sentencing and public opinion; Transforming the penal landscape.

Copyright of Sociologie & Sociétés is the property of Presses de l'Universite de Montreal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article provides historical context for sentencing research in Canada. Research on sentencing has tended to come in waves. The first major study of the sentencing process focused on data from 1955 and was published in 1963 by Stuart Jaffary. Almost a decade later Sentencing as a Human Process was published by John Hogarth. These studies belong to a wider international tradition of exploring the phenomenology of judicial decision-making. The next wave of research emerged in the middle of 1980. Studies on all aspects of sentencing were conducted by the Canadian Sentencing Commission as part of its mandate. The Commission's research reports comprise the most systematic research initiative in the area ever conducted in the state. Two special issues of scholarly periodicals and an edited volume of articles also made an important contribution to research and scholarship in the area of sentencing. The first was a special issue of Criminologie, La determination de la peine, which appeared in 1987. The second special issue was published by the Canadian Journal of Criminology in 1990 and contained a number of important research articles which are still highly relevant. Thereafter, there was less research activity until the federal government introduced its response to the Sentencing Commission and Daubney Committee reports.

This paper reviews the evolution of penal policy in Canada in recent years. In many respects, Canada occupies a unique position with respect to criminal justice. The principal influence on penal policy development has been the United States, .yet at the same time developments in the United Kingdom have also been important. One result is that policy development in recent years has tended to follow a middle path between the more extreme and radical American route (that has given rise to policies suck as "three strikes" legislation) and the more conservative European reforms. Canada's policies with respect to punishment have been affected by a number of influences, including: the presence (advocacy groups; the reporting by the news media of high-profile tragedies such as the Montreal massacre of fourteen young women; the restrictions of budgetary constraints; and the intervention of several federal elections in which crime became an important electoral issue. In this respect, penal policy development in Canada echoes trends in other jurisdictions. The ,federal government, which is responsible ,for policy development (but not the administration of those policies) has attempted to pursue a dual-track policy. One branch of this policy has sought to reduce the use of imprisonment and thereby cut criminal justice expenditures. The other track has sought to placate public" and political pressure on the government by introducing more repressive penal policies, including severe minimum penalties and higher maximum penalties for young offenders. This paper reviews recent developments in the critical areas of sentencing and parole, and draws some general conclusions about criminal justice policy development in this country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rape reform legislation in Canada was designed to change: 1) the way sexual assault cases were processed by the criminal justice system and 2) public opinion about crimes of sexual aggression. This article reports findings from a representative survey of the Canadian public and an experimental analysis of the effects of the legislation on public knowledge and attitudes. Results from the nation-wide survey indicated that most people are unaware of the semantic shift (from the old language of rape and indecent assault to the new crimes of sexual assault). However, there is awareness of the substantive legal changes introduced by the rape reform legislation (such as the fact that husbands are no longer immune from criminal charges involving their wives). It is clear that rape reform legislation has affected public knowledge of statutory reforms regarding crimes of sexual aggression. Results from the experimental component of this research show that the new sexual assault label has not achieved one of the important goals, namely of changing public perceptions of the nature of crimes of sexual aggression. Indeed, one negative effect predicted by feminist writers seems to have emerged: sentencing decisions made by the public for the offense of rape were less severe when the incident was described as a sexual assault. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author illustrates the dangers of routinely collecting and distributing race‐crime data by reviewing the US experience in the practice. He argues that ethnicity data should only be gathered periodically, and only by researchers like the Canadian Centre of Justice Statistics on a "special study" basis. Race, the author notes, is not the cause of crime, so the collection of such information will provide no direct remedy to solve a criminal problem. It is argued, therefore, that routine collection of crime data should focus more clearly on the collection of criminal justice statistics in order to better respond to crime. Roberts warns against the power of crime‐race statistics to misinform and distinguishes between crime statistics and arrest statistics. To address the potential danger of misusing data by linking crime to perceived race, proposed is a solution in which data would be studied and released by Statistics Canada. The study reports would include contextual information as well as discussion of the limitations of inferring relative participation rates in criminal activity. By weighing the benefits and costs of making such data available, and addressing the problem of classification, the author concludes that while information gathered by special studies is helpful in documenting discrimination, race/ethnicity data should not be collected in a routine manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opinion polls in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and elsewhere suggest that most members of the public would like their criminal courts to be harsher. Does media coverage of criminal sentencing contribute to a preference for harsher sentencing? Most people derive their information about sentencing from the news media, and content analyses of news stories in Canada and the United States demonstrate that crimes of violence and sentences of imprisonment are overrepresented. Moreover, the news media provide little systematic information about the sentencing process or its underlying principles. This article reports the results of three studies examining the effects of media coverage on public opinion about sentencing. Subjects who read actual newspaper stories about sentencing that appeared in Canadian newspapers rated most reported sentences as too lenient. However, the specific account they read influenced their leniency judgments. Furthermore, in one experiment, participants assigned to read a newspaper account of a sentencing decision supported harsher sentences than participants who read a summary of actual court documents from the sentencing hearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Criminology is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The author reflects on the need to establish an implementing mechanism regarding sentencing guidelines that should be incorporated within the sentencing reform initiative. He argues that the guidelines should be developed in a way that it would be appropriate for the Canadian criminal justice system. Moreover, he stresses that failure to establish prompt reforms will make problems related to the sentencing process become intractable and the solutions unattainable.