April 21
Toronto Star – Amy Dempsey
‘Not criminally responsible’ law misses point: Critics
The Not-Criminally Responsible Reform Act received Royal Assent last week and will be law in July. But critics say that the reform is not at all a reform and will likely make matters worse for both offender and victim. “If you want to enhance public safety, all the data is saying turn right and we’re going left,” says Justice Richard Schneider, chair of the Ontario Review Board, a provincial body that oversees individuals found not criminally responsible or unfit to stand trial. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/04/19/not_criminally_responsible_law_misses_point_critics.html
CBC News – Hamilton (ON)
Ontario jails in midst of a surge in cellblock violence
Hamilton jails are among the worst for inmate-on-inmate violence with over 200 incidents. But elsewhere there are similar increases in violence over five years ago, largely getting blamed on over-crowding. Figures suggest that there are eight attacks each day and that there has been an overall increase of almost one third from five years ago. The system is clogged with sometimes three persons per cell designed for one; additionally there are disproportionate numbers for Aboriginals and Blacks in the Hamilton jails. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/ontario-jails-in-midst-of-a-surge-in-cellblock-violence-1.2600968 Related article: Toronto Star Ontario inmates get ‘inadequate’ food in court, lawyers say http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/ontario-inmates-get-inadequate-food-in-court-lawyers-say-1.2616042
CTV News –Jordan Chittley
Life expectancy for Aboriginals in Toronto is 37: report
Though the sample for the study was low, retired volunteer Doctor Chandrakant Shah says he was shocked to learn that a mecca for health care like Toronto could experience such as low life expectancy for Aboriginals – even lower for males at 34. “The report is asking for a multi-year plan with defined and measurable outcomes for public education, an employment strategy and for Aboriginals to be better represented on city agencies, boards and corporations. The city has proclaimed 2014 to be the year of truth and reconciliation.” http://knlive.ctvnews.ca/life-expectancy-for-aboriginals-in-toronto-is-37-report-1.1781398#ixzz2zRge0oyp
Globe and Mail – Hugh Segal and Carolyn Hughes Tuohy
Equal opportunity a right that Canada must preserve
Segal and Tuohy first draw a picture of income inequality in the US and then queries the scene in Canada with a comparison of factors that contribute to income disparity. “When young people cannot build roles as productive participants in an economic mainstream that is supposed to be open, competitive and welcoming, it is not only the legitimate prospects of youth but also the mainstream itself that faces peril. Social capital is an instrument for intergenerational economic progress.” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/equal-opportunity-a-right-that-canada-must-preserve/article18054016
Huffington Post (US) – John Matthews
The Youthful Face of Mass Violence in America
Matthews, Executive Director, Community Safety Institute (CSI) in Dallas, TX, looks at the age of the perpetrators of educational institutional violence over the last 30 years. Mass violence perpetrators in general have an average age of 33.2 years but when it occurs on a college campus the age drops to 21.9 years and when high schools are considered 18.6 years. Matthews says they are more often than not individuals without criminal history, youth beyond intervention from mental health but with access to weapons. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-matthews/the-youthful-face-of-mass_b_5175271.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Science World Report – Kathleen Lees
Criminal Conduct and Mental Illness: Are there Predictable Patterns?
This report derives from the mental health courts and suggests that mental health and the justice system interface in a small number of striking crimes but well below the number with mental health issues. Says Jillian Peterson, the study’s author, “The vast majority of people with mental illness are not violent, not criminal and not dangerous.” The study suggests that only 7.5% of crimes by those with mental health issues were directly related to the symptoms of the mental affliction. There was also no evidence that those who commit crimes do so repeatedly. http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/14123/20140421/criminal-conduct-and-mental-illness-are-there-predictable-patterns.htm
UCLA Sociology – Ariel Hsieh
The Sociological Imagination: Restorative Justice
This article, from an undergraduate in the department, offers a fresh look at some of the practices and advantages of RJ vs what it calls ‘conventional justice.’ He offers that “having a “war on crime” mentality essentially divides society into two camps distinguished by deviance, defined broadly by sociologists as behavior that is recognized as violating social expectations and norms (e.g., criminal activity).” http://bruinsua.weebly.com/1/post/2014/04/the-sociological-imagination-restorative-justice.html
National Immigrant Justice Center
Eliminate the Detention Bed Quota – The Impact on Women and Families
The article is a fact sheet of the impact on women and families of men picked up and place for long periods in immigration detention for likely deportation. The problems are akin to the consequences for imprisonment for any crime and spouses and children are secondary victims of all crimes that result in imprisonment. http://immigrantjustice.org/sites/immigrantjustice.org/files/FACTSHEET%20Bed%20Quota%20Impact%20on%20Women%20and%20Families.pdf