Sociology

Reforms to Canadian sentencing law in 1996 and the Supreme Court of Canada decision R. v. Gladue [1999] opened the door to a new normative set of legal practices that endeavour to integrate racial knowledge about offenders' collective and individual experiences of race relations and oppression into traditional legal criminal practices. One outcome of the reforms and court cases was the formation of dedicated Gladue courts for Aboriginal peoples. This paper explores the formation of Gladue courts, the legal techniques used to produce contextualized racial knowledges, how this information is admitted as evidence before the court, and how this knowledge is used to reframe legal subjects and the risk they pose. Résumé Des réformes apportées en 1996 aux lois concernant la détermination de la peine, ainsi que la décision R. c. Gladue de 1999 de la Cour suprême du Canada, ont ouvert la voie à un nouvel ensemble de pratiques normatives visant à intégrer aux pratiques pénales traditionnelles les connaissances sur les expériences collectives et individuelles du contrevenant en matière de relations et d' oppression raciales. L'un des résultats de ces réformes et affaires a été la création de tribunaux Gladue spéciaux pour les personnes autochtones. Cet article examine la création des tri-bunaux Gladue, les techniques juridiques employées pour obtenir des connais-sances raciales contextualisées, la façon par laquelle cette information est prise en compte par la Cour, et la façon par laquelle ces connaissances sont appliquées pour resituer les sujets juridiques et les risques qu'ils posent.

In the past two decades, Canadian policies governing the structure and content of pre-sentence reports (PSRs) have shifted to focus more directly on the systematic identification of offender's criminogenic risk and needs. In this article, we (1) examine how risk-based approaches to offender management have altered the structure and format of the PSR in Canada, and (2) contrast the structure of risk-based PSRs to Gladue reports for Aboriginal offenders in Canada. Gladue reports are designed to identify the unique systemic race/cultural and historical factors specific to Aboriginal offenders and to recommend alternatives to incarceration. We argue that although risk-based PSRs incorporate recognition of race-related issues, their structure and emphasis on actuarially based risk assessments frames race and risk differently from Gladue reports. In Gladue reports, holistic approaches and cultural impact factors are documented and used to understand risk and need. Finally, we argue that the conceptualization and relevance of race is limited by actuarial risk logic. Sentencing is an important aspect of legal decision making, in which information about an offender's risk and needs is produced, contested and used to craft sanctions. 2 Risk information is clearly relevant to the judiciary during the sentencing process (Vigorita, 2003): to evaluate 'risk', judges use information from a variety of sources (i.e. criminal history, professional assessment, pre-sentence, 'Gladue reports' 3 and offender statements), and decisions based on risk are often informed by conflicting penal rationales (i.e. rehabilitation, deterrence, incapacitation). Scholars have recently raised concerns about how criminal law, and sentencing

While it is widely acknowledged that Canadian Muslims are targeted at airports and borders, few studies have focused on their actual experiences of state surveillance practices. Moreover, little attention has been paid to how these experiences impact and shape identity formation and their understanding of citizenship. To address this gap, we conducted 50 in-depth interviews with young Canadian Muslims living in Vancouver and Toronto. Our interviewees referred to being repeatedly stopped, questioned, detained, and harassed by security personnel. They felt that any evidence of their Muslim identity – name, country of birth, appearance, or clothing – makes them a target for extra surveillance, resulting in heightened fears about being stripped of their rights and a lack of ability to assert their religious identities. This paper explores the implications of racialized border practices on identity formation and citizenship depletion among Muslim Canadians. Résumé. Alors qu'il est la...

RésuméUne « peine juste » est de plus en plus structurée selon le cadre de la probabilité actuarielle. Les technologies du risque actuariel sont souvent considérées comme des procédés ayant, en grande partie, supplanté la prise de décision discrétionnaire de la part des intervenants par des modèles décisionnaires structurés et quantitatifs. Certains savants soutiennent que la transition vers des pénalités basées sur le risque a mené à la «déqualification», à la «scientificité» et à «l'érosion de la discrétion professionnelle», voire même à l'élimination du pouvoir discrétionnaire professionnel de la part des praticiens du droit criminel. Basé sur 71 entrevues semi-structurées et non directives avec des professionnels de la justice criminelle, cet article analyse comment l'introduction des outils du risque façonne la discrétion sans toutefois l'éliminer. Nous soutenons que les outils du risque ne sont pas simplement imposés sur les praticiens de la justice criminelle....

THE HOLY SEE is terribly afraid of Communism, the centre of which, in Canada, is Toronto," wrote Toronto's Roman Catholic Archbishop James McGuigan in 1937 upon returning from the Vatican." "It is unfortunately making progress here and I would not be at all surprised if, within a few years, we have a real persecution similar to that in Spain." While an exaggerated claim, such beliefs framed the perceptions of many English-speaking Catholics in the city. Threatened by what appeared as a profusion of socialist organizing, the Archdiocese of Toronto had by the 1930s developed an extensive infras tructure to seek out, régula te and pre ven t the spread of communism. As the Toronto Red Squad, a branch of the police department, was using coercive tactics to thwart communist-related activities, the

Executive Summary The purpose of this study was to review and critique the concepts of risk and need as they relate to assessments of youth within the Canadian criminal justice system and to identify existing risk/need assessment tools currently used with young offenders. Each provincial/territorial government was contacted in order to identify the central risk/need assessment instruments used with young offenders, and interviews were conducted to determine the purpose and practice of risk/need assessments at various key decision-making stages of the criminal justice system. Particular attention is paid to why certain tools were chosen and attempts are made to document research conducted in the provinces and territories. The report concludes with recommendations on the use of risk/need assessment in light of the new Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA). An in-depth analysis of the reliability and validity of the scales was not possible because the raw data upon which they are based, as...

Increasingly, risk assessments are being adopted throughout the criminal justice system in Canada, and they are playing a significant role in the preparation of pre-sentence reports. Over the past five years, nine of Canada's jurisdictions have adopted the use of risk assessments for the preparation of youth pre-sentencing reports (PSR). While ample theoretical knowledge about risk exists, there are noticeably fewer empirical studies of how risk frameworks (re)shape and (re)organize local institutional decision-making practices or of what the socio-political effects of these processes are. Drawing on interviews, case law review, and analyses of risk-assessment documents, this article considers the implications of using risk assessments in the preparation of youth pre-sentencing reports (PSRs). In particular, attention is paid to the tensions between emerging risk practices and the emphasis on proportional sentencing under the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA).

Proportionality, as stipulated in the 2003 Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), sets out the parameters within which we examine the implications of embedding risk assessments within youth pre-sentence reports (PSRs). Our article raises questions for academic and legal professionals and, ultimately, judges, who may or may not elect to consider risk/need assessments in the determination of a sentence. The sentencing principles contained in section 38(2) stipulate that (c) the sentence must be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the young person for that offence; and that (e) subject to [the aforementioned] paragraph (c), the sentence must (ii) be the one that is most likely to rehabilitate the young person and reintegrate him or her into society. (emphasis added) The YCJA is unequivocal in the priority afforded to proportionality. By contrast, rehabilitation, albeit important, is of less relevance to sentencing. We do not dispute the importance or impact of treatment and rehabilitative approaches in the management of offenders. Our concern is with whether the use of risk-assessment information at sentencing contravenes the principle of proportionality and/or disparity. The ''seriousness of the offence,'' the degree of harm caused, and the youth's ''degree of responsibility'' are central to proportionality, but

In the past two decades, Canadian policies governing the structure and content of presentence reports (PSRs) have shifted to focus more directly on the systematic identification of offender’s criminogenic risk and needs. In this article, we (1) examine how risk-based approaches to offender management have altered the structure and format of the PSR in Canada, and (2) contrast the structure of risk-based PSRs to Gladue reports for Aboriginal offenders in Canada. Gladue reports are designed to identify the unique systemic race/cultural and historical factors specific to Aboriginal offenders and to recommend alternatives to incarceration. We argue that although risk-based PSRs incorporate recognition of race-related issues, their structure and emphasis on actuarially based risk assessments frames race and risk differently from Gladue reports. In Gladue reports, holistic approaches and cultural impact factors are documented and used to understand risk and need. Finally, we argue that th...

Reforms to Canadian sentencing law in 1996 and the Supreme Court of Canada decisionR. v. Gladue[1999] opened the door to a new normative set of legal practices that endeavour to integrate racial knowledge about offenders’ collective and individual experiences of race relations and oppression into traditional legal criminal practices. One outcome of the reforms and court cases was the formation of dedicated Gladue courts for Aboriginal peoples. This paper explores the formation of Gladue courts, the legal techniques used to produce contextualized racial knowledges, how this information is admitted as evidence before the court, and how this knowledge is used to reframe legal subjects and the risk they pose.

While it is widely acknowledged that Canadian Muslims are targeted at airports and borders, few studies have focused on their actual experiences of state surveillance practices. Moreover, little attention has been paid to how these experiences impact and shape identity formation and their understanding of citizenship. To address this gap, we conducted 50 in-depth interviews with young Canadian Muslims living in Vancouver and Toronto. Our interviewees referred to being repeatedly stopped, questioned, detained, and harassed by security personnel. They felt that any evidence of their Muslim identity – name, country of birth, appearance, or clothing – makes them a target for extra surveillance, resulting in heightened fears about being stripped of their rights and a lack of ability to assert their religious identities. This paper explores the implications of racialized border practices on identity formation and citizenship depletion among Muslim Canadians.

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The 2018 election of Premier Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservative (PC) government ushered in a new era of neoliberal populism in Ontario, Canada. Ford’s election platform, titled a “Plan for the People,” resonated with the business elite who supported his free-market reforms but also with middle-class and blue-collar workers living in suburban and northern areas of the province. The article examines how Ford positioned his rivals as “out of touch” members of the political and cultural urban elite, responsible for a spiralling deficit that would economi-cally burden hard-working people. Unlike many other right-wing populist leaders, who have relied on xenophobic or anti-immigrant narratives, we argue that Ford’s populist stance is dema-gogic and pragmatic. This enabled him to pivot and shift his political strategy to amass support from a diverse range of economic, racial, ethnic, and religious groups, including new immigrants. We draw on newspaper articles, public documents and...

Studies of post-nationalism have declined considerably among citizenship scholars in recent decades, and have been largely ignored by social movement scholars in favour of more trans-national approaches. Using a case analysis of a migrant rights movement in Canada as evidence of a ‘post-national ethics in practice’, in this article I argue for a re-consideration of the usefulness of post-nationalism within current scholarship on precarious immigration status. Taking into account both the limitations and opportunities afforded by a post-national ethical framework, I examine how the movement uses a human rights framing in distinct ways to mobilize constituents, garner mainstream media attention, and effect changes to policy at the national and local level. My findings suggest that the use of human rights frames for these movements offers both risks and rewards; however, the benefits may outweigh the risks in cases in which the quality of exposure within mainstream narratives is enough to disrupt, even if momentarily, the pervasiveness of normative nationalism, opening up new spaces for reconfiguring citizenship at the local level.

Violence against women (VAW) is a citizenship issue that fundamentally affects a woman’s bodily integrity and personhood, as well as her right to dignity, security and freedom from discrimination. In all communities, VAW is shaped by cultural processes that give meaning to acts of violence and condition responses to this violence. Within Toronto’s diverse South Asian
communities, patterns of VAW are complex, occurring at multiple levels of family, community, society, and state. We conducted interviews with 15 professionals with a longstanding engagement in addressing VAW in the diverse South Asian communities of the Greater Toronto
Area (GTA). These professionals argue that mainstream approaches to service provision are
often based on dominant cultural understandings of freedom from violence that do not always
“fit” South Asian women’s needs. Likewise, terms like “honour killing” can perform their own
type of violence when used in culturally stigmatizing ways. We conclude that a more nuanced
conceptualization of culture as giving meaning to all forms of violence combined with a
structural conceptualization of violence as, what we call, multi-scalar, enables a re-thinking of
violence against women in all communities and a deepening of our understanding of women’s
full citizenship.