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Though pardons (record suspensions) have existed in Canada for over four decades, most reform to the pardon programme has occurred in the last decade. An experimental survey was conducted to understand whether providing basic information pertaining to crime and criminal behaviour would affect support for pardons in Canada. Generally, there was no relationship between responses to pardon-related questions and demographics (i.e. gender, age or education) or most other standard criminal justice-related questions. Responses to questions on three aspects of pardons (eligibility waiting times; submission fees; and automatic pardons) were not affected by whether or not the information condition was received. However, providing respondents with a small amount of information about sex offence recidivism did increase the acceptability of allowing those convicted of sex offences to receive pardons. These findings suggest that certain concerns regarding pardon accessibility could potentially be alleviated by presenting existing government data to the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on punitive criminal justice policies in relation to criminal laws in Canada. Topics discussed include social causes as the major reasons of crimes in Canada according to the official reports and public statements, imprisonment expected to control or reduce crime, and the number of Canadians having criminal records according to the Public Safety Canada reports.