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Academic Journals - latest articles

Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice/La Revue canadienne de criminologie et de justice pénale

  • Politique sur la police des Premières nations : une avancée en matière de gouvernance ?

    Le présent article fait état des résultats d'une étude empirique sur les services policiers autochtones du Québec. Il évalue leurs conditions d'exercice et de fonctionnement et les met en perspective avec les objectifs de la Politique sur la police des Premières nations, afin notamment d'établir dans quelle mesure les polices autochtones installées après l'adoption de cette politique constituent une forme de gouvernance en matière de justice. Les résultats de cette étude montrent que si les polices autochtones disposent – sur le papier – des mêmes pouvoirs et prérogatives que les organisations policières régulières et semblent devoir faire la preuve d'une efficacité équivalente, les moyens dont elles bénéficient sont très inférieurs à ceux qui sont alloués aux organisations policières régulières alors même qu'elles gèrent des problématiques plus lourdes. In fine, ils s'interrogent quant à la véritable volonté politique des gouvernements fédéral et provincial de voir se concrétiser les objectifs de la Politique sur la police des Premières nations, à tout le moins celui visant à promouvoir l'autonomie des Premières nations.

    • Content Type Journal Article
    • Category Advance Online Article
    • Pages -1--1
    • DOI 10.3138/cjccj.2010.F.07
    • Authors
      • Laura Aubert
      • Mylène Jaccoud


  • The Persistence of Status Offences in the Youth Justice System

    The Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) has been successful in removing minor cases from formal youth court processing. Whether in relation to police charging, guilty findings in court, or the use of custody, there have been considerable reductions. However, this article argues that Canada continues to struggle with keeping status-type offences (e.g., failing to comply with bail or probation conditions) out of the youth justice system. While other minor types of offences were declining before the YCJA came into effect, failing to comply offences needed legislative change to reduce their rates, and the greatest, sustained reductions have been seen in the areas of the YCJA that are specific and leave little ambiguity. The less specific areas of the Act have, on the other hand, allowed for increases with respect to these types of offences. Failing to comply with bail conditions appears to be particularly difficult to remove from formal youth court processing and questions are raised in the article about whether these types of case are being created by the courts themselves.

    • Content Type Journal Article
    • Category Advance Online Article
    • Pages -1--1
    • DOI 10.3138/cjccj.2011.E.43
    • Authors
      • Jane B. Sprott


  • Police Witness Interview Training, Supervision, and Feedback: A Survey of Canadian Police Officers

    Despite the recognized importance of intensive training for producing effective police interviewers and the importance of sustained supervision and feedback in maintaining learned interviewing skills, there is no empirical data on the current state of such practices in Canadian police organizations. Canadian police officers (N=171) from two organizations completed an online survey about the training, supervision, and feedback received for interviewing adult witnesses. Officers reported that their training was limited and came from several disparate sources, and many officers expressed a lack of satisfaction with the interview training that they had received. The majority of officers also indicated that it was rare for them to receive supervision or feedback from their supervisors on their interviews or refresher training to help them maintain their skills. The implications of these findings for police interviewing practices and the potential to use these results to improve current witness interviewing practices in Canada are discussed.

    • Content Type Journal Article
    • Category Advance Online Article
    • Pages -1--1
    • DOI 10.3138/cjccj.2011.E.13
    • Authors
      • Brent Snook
      • John C. House
      • Sarah MacDonald
      • Joseph Eastwood


  • Books Received / Livres reçus – April/avril 2012

    Books Received / Livres reçus – April/avril 2012

    • Content Type Journal Article
    • Category Books Received
    • Pages 262-262
    • DOI 10.3138/cjccj.54.2.262


  • Book Reviews / Recensions de livres (April/avril 2012)

    Book Reviews / Recensions de livres (April/avril 2012)

    • Content Type Journal Article
    • Category Book Reviews
    • Pages 261-261
    • DOI 10.3138/cjccj.54.2.261


  • “We Never Refer to Ourselves as a Lobby Group Because ‘Lobby Group’ Has a Different Connotation”: Voluntary Police Associations and the Framing of Their Interest Group Work

    The police, like other groups in civil society, have a vested interest in the outcome of government policy deliberations. Collectively, they often attempt to advance policy agendas through several lobbying techniques that suggest that their voluntary associations could be properly understood as interest groups. And yet, there is often ambivalence or a deep reluctance on the part of police organizations to characterize their politicking as interest group work. In the present article, we draw on interviews, media reports and various other materials to elucidate some of the rhetorical strategies used to recast police interest-group work. Further, we explain the reluctance of police leader groups to be seen as overtly political and contrast this to attitudes held by police rank-and-file groups that more openly characterize their interest group work as “lobbying.” The overall goal of this article is to contribute to a surprisingly thin literature on the politics of the police.

    • Content Type Journal Article
    • Category Advance Online Article
    • Pages -1--1
    • DOI 10.3138/cjccj.2011.E27
    • Authors
      • Laura Huey
      • Danielle Hryniewicz


  • The Impact of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games on Crime in Vancouver

    There is little research on exceptional events and crime. Yet exceptional events, such as natural disasters, worldwide political meetings, and international sporting competitions, affect the lifestyles and routines of large numbers of people. In this article, we examine the impact of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games on assault, theft, mischief, and prostitution in Vancouver neighbourhoods. Overall, there is no evidence to support the claim that the Olympic Games affected all crime types and in all places. However, we do find increases in assault that relate to the Olympic Games in a few key neighbourhoods. As with previous research, it appears that the substantial increase in the number of security personnel (police, military, etc.) mitigated the potential increase in crime.

    • Content Type Journal Article
    • Category Advance Online Article
    • Pages -1--1
    • DOI 10.3138/cjccj.2011.E44
    • Authors
      • Martin A. Andresen
      • William Tong


  • Attitudes, Beliefs, and Knowledge of Prostitution and the Law in Canada

    Prostitution in Canada is technically not illegal; however, current laws make the act of buying or selling sex illegal under most circumstances. The legal status of prostitution was recently brought to public attention after three of these laws were deemed unconstitutional by an Ontario Superior Court judge. The present study recruited 238 Canadian undergraduate students to investigate their knowledge of, and attitudes toward, current Canadian prostitution laws. In addition, the relationship between these attitudes and beliefs about prostitution more generally, were examined. The results indicate that while most students have an accurate understanding of the majority of the laws relating to prostitution, they are unaware of situations in which prostitution can take place without breaking the law. Further, students are generally unaware that communicating for the purposes of prostitution in a public place and being found within a bawdy house are illegal. The number of years participants had lived in Canada was found to be a significant predictor of more accurate knowledge of the laws. Gender, ethnicity, and beliefs about aspects of prostitution were significant predictors of attitudes toward the law. Participants perceived female and street prostitution more negatively than male and indoor prostitution. Implications with respect to education and changes to the current legislation and public policy are discussed.

    • Content Type Journal Article
    • Category Research Notes
    • Pages 229-244
    • DOI 10.3138/cjccj.2010.E.46
    • Authors
      • Heather Morton
      • Carolin Klein
      • Boris B. Gorzalka


  • Public Opinion on Prostitution Law Reform in Canada1

    This research note examines prohibitionist claims about public opinion on Canadian prostitution law. It focuses on (1) the Christian Legal Fellowship, REAL Women of Canada, and the Catholic Civil Rights League (CLF) factum to the Superior Court of Ontario in Bedford v Canada (2010), which claims that most Canadians support prohibition; and (2) Prime Minister Stephen Harper's assertion that most Canadians support the prohibitionist stance underlying his government's decision to appeal the Superior Court of Ontario's decision to strike down several prostitution laws (Bedford v Canada 2010). A review of seven national public opinion polls conducted between 1984 and 2011 reveals that, contrary to the CLF and the prime minister's claims, since 2005 a small majority of Canadians favour some form of decriminalization of consensual adult prostitution. The surveys reveal marked gender differences in attitudes to prostitution law reform, with men being more likely to favour decriminalization than women. Three Angus Reid surveys (2009, 2010, 2011) suggest that there is little support for the “Nordic model” of demand-side prohibition.

    • Content Type Journal Article
    • Category Research Notes
    • Pages 245-260
    • DOI 10.3138/cjccj.2011.E.34
    • Authors
      • John Lowman
      • Christine Louie


  • Subverting and Negotiating Risk Assessment: A Case Study of the LSI in a Canadian Youth Custody Facility

    This case study examines probation officers and local agents' strategies and approaches to completing and applying the Level of Supervision Inventory (LSI) to female young offenders at Youth House, an open-custody facility in central Canada. Both the probation officers and Youth House staff express concerns about the LSI and employ strategies to subvert its almost deterministic impact through discretionary practices. I show that the LSI's risk calculations are subverted by both Youth House staff and, to a lesser extent, the probation officers, thereby reducing the LSI's importance in the management of offenders. Lastly, I find that probation officers utilize the LSI to externalize responsibility. This tool provides them with a means by which to justify and rationalize their management decisions. This study supports not only the growing body of literature that examines risk in practice but also contributes to increasing knowledge on how risk rationales on the macro-level translate to practices at the local level.

    • Content Type Journal Article
    • Category Articles
    • Pages 203-228
    • DOI 10.3138/cjccj.2010.E.27
    • Authors
      • Dale Ballucci


Research Journals latest Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal justice

New Journal! STATE CRIME

Journal of the International State Crime Initiative

 

We are delighted to announce the arrival of State Crime, the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to state crime scholarship. The journal is interdisciplinary and international and seeks to develop deeper understandings of state crime and institutional deviance. Topics on which articles are invited include: torture; genocide and other forms of government and politically organised mass killing; war crimes; state-corporate crime; state-organised crime; natural disasters exacerbated by government (in)action; asylum and refugee policy and practice; state terror; political and economic corruption; and resistance to state violence and corruption. The journal is keen to feature both empirical and theoretical studies.

 The journal will be published twice yearly by Pluto Press from April 2012. Details of the editorial and peer review arrangements can be found in the Editorial Board and Notes for Contributors section. Articles should be limited to 8,000 words and written and submitted in accordance with the guidelines for authors.

 All queries should be directed to the editorial board at journal@statecrime.org

Tuesday, May 22, 2012
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