Justice report card…

Sept 20, 2016

 CBC News – Alison Crawford
Think tank releases report card on Canada’s justice system – Territories and Manitoba score lowest, P.E.I. highest based on cost and effectiveness

The conservative think tank MacDonald-Laurier Institute has published a report card on justice across the country, authored by University of British Columbia law professor Benjamin Perrin and Richard Audas, an Associate Professor of Health Statistics and Economics at the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University.  The report card has six categories and gives relatively average scores in the form of letter grades for the provinces and territories.  http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/macdonald-laurier-institute-justice-study-1.3770937   Full report:  Report Card on the Criminal justice system: Evaluating Canada’s Justice Deficit  https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3111332/MLI-Report.pdf   (Executive summary – pp 4,5)

Toronto Star – Christopher Ingraham
Just 3 per cent of adults own half of America’s guns

Harvard and Northeastern universities have just completed a new study that says that gun ownership in the US is quite concentrated and more like to be owners with as many as 17 guns each vs widespread ownership of single guns.  22% of the 4,000 survey said they owned a gun, a lower percentage than other surveys to date.  “When I look at our survey, what I see is a population that is living in fear,” Deb Azrael, a Harvard researcher and one of the study’s lead authors, told the non-profit news organization the Trace. “They are buying handguns to protect themselves against bad guys, they store their guns ready-to-use because of bad guys, and they believe that their guns make them safer.”   https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/09/19/just-3-per-cent-of-adults-own-half-of-americas-guns.html

Toronto Star – Jacques Gallant
Law Society report proposes changes to combat systemic racism

For the past four years a committee of the Law Society of Upper Canada has been studying and preparing a report on systemic racism and how it impacts the workplace of the legal profession.  Paul Jonathan Saguil, a Pilipino-Canadian lawyer and an author of the report, sees the next step as having firms develop a human rights / diversity policy “addressing at the very least fair recruitment, retention and advancement.”  https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/09/19/law-society-report-proposes-changes-to-combat-systemic-racism.html

Toronto Star – Mohamed Dhanani
How doctors are failing us in death- Never mind assisted-dying, our health care system needs to change the way it deals with the natural end of life

The issue is end of life issues and the fact that, assisted dying apart, there is a considerable confusion and diversity around a patient’s end of life issues from natural causes.  Dhanani recounts his family experience in the 18 days of life support for their father-in-law.  “As my family’s experience illustrates, end-of-life care and the difficult discussions surrounding that care are too inconsistent — inconsistent between institutions and inconsistent between doctors within a single hospital. It is something we can and must fix.”  https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/09/20/how-doctors-are-failing-us-in-death.html

CTV News – Errin Haines Whack, The Associated Press
America’s racial wage gap widest in nearly 4 decades: report

The latest report from the Economic Policy Institute on income inequality says that the inequity is larger than it has ever been for Blacks compared to whites, a factor that is viewed as “the main reason for the persisting disparity.”  The report found the wage gap worse than 36 years ago and that the hardest hit are Black women.   “According to the report released Tuesday, as of 2015, black men living in similar metropolitan areas and regions of the country make 22 per cent less than white men with the same education and experience. For black women, the number is 34.2 per cent less. Black women made 11.7 per cent less than white women.”   http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/america-s-racial-wage-gap-widest-in-nearly-4-decades-report-1.3079681   Full Report:  Economic Policy Institute – How discrimination and rising overall inequality are expanding the black-white wage gap   http://www.epi.org/event/how-discrimination-and-rising-overall-inequality-are-expanding-the-black-white-wage-gap/

Brave New Films (US)
Restorative Justice Series

There are two short films at the link: one is Restorative Justice: Why do we need it?  (A 3 minute graphic film with narration)  And the second is Choice for Change (A 5 minute film describing a RJ solution to a juvenile collision) http://www.bravenewfilms.org/restorativejustice  Additional link: (A Youtube 13 minute intro to RJ in the schools) Repairing our schools through restorative justice: Jean Klasovsky  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqktOiYG5NM&feature=youtu.be

Russell Webster Blog (UK)
Seven challenges for policing

Webster offers an analysis of seven fundamental changes facing police from a UK Police Foundation paper.  The paper, the second of five expected, is entitled: Police Effectiveness in a Changing World: Prioritisation in a Changing World.  The paper is a 24 page downloadable pdf available at:  http://www.police-foundation.org.uk/uploads/holding/projects/police_prioritisation.pdf  Webster’s blog is a summary of the seven and available at:  http://www.russellwebster.com/seven-challenges-for-policing/