criminology final exam

• Criminal law


  The entire set of principles, procedures, and rules established by governments through the courts and criminal legislation in order to ensure public safety
• Brief history of criminal law

  • Code of Hammurabi established that the punishment should fit the crime
  • Root of law is based on English common law
  • Emergence of government as a meaningful source of central authority and a mechanism of collective action
  • Growth of professional state police services
  • Increasing complexity of social interaction
  • Modern criminal law required a body of penal law
• Criminal law in Canada

  • Provincial and municipal police forces investigate most crimes and prosecutors working for the provincial governments prosecute most offenders
  • Federal government determines what acts are criminal and what available punishments apply
  • Federal government can enact any criminal law necessary to protect the "public, peace, order, security, health, and morality"
  • Most criminal laws are found in the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act
• The Criminal Code of Canada (CCC)


  • The most important piece of legislation that the Canadian parliament has enacted within the field of criminal law
  • Deals with substantive criminal law and criminal procedure
• Types of offenses under the CCC

  • Summary conviction offenses
  • Indictable offenses
  • Hybrid offenses
• The criminal courts


  • Federal government is responsible for superior courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, where the most severe or serious of criminal cases or appeals are managed
  • Provincial courts handle the majority of criminal cases as well as personal issues
  • The criminal trial determines the judgment on the accused's reported crime
  • Principle of innocent until proven guilty
• Impact of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on criminal law

  • The Charter ensures citizens rights are constitutionally entrenched, but these rights are not absolute
  • Section 1 says our rights are only subject to "such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society"
  • Sometimes as individuals Charter rights conflict with the duties and limits of the Criminal Code
• The basic elements of a crime

  • Actus reus - the guilty act
  • Mens rea - the guilty mind
• The actus reus element of a crime

  • Conduct must be voluntary
  • The surrounding or "material" circumstances
  • The consequences of the voluntary conduct
• The mens rea element of a crime


  • Subjective mens rea: intent, knowledge, willful blindness or negligence, recklessness
  • Objective mens rea: focussed on negligence offenses, where the accused's actions fail to meet the standard of a "reasonable person"
• Differences between classification of offenses

  • Absolute liability offenses
  • Strict liability offenses
  • Mens rea offenses
• Inchoate offenses


  • Criminal attempt
  • Conspiracy
  • Counseling an offense that is not committed
• Becoming party to a criminal offense: aiding and abetting


  Anyone is a party to a criminal offense who: actually commits it, aids another person to commit it, abets any person to commit it
• Some defenses to a criminal charge

  • Mental disorder
  • Mistake of fact
  • Mistake of law
  • Intoxication
  • Necessity
  • Duress
  • Self defense
• Social control, discipline, and sanctions

  • Informal sanctions: emerge in face to face social interactions
  • Formal sanctions: ways to officially recognize and enforce norm violations
  • 4 key styles of social control: penal, compensatory, therapeutic, conciliatory
• Foucault's discipline and control


  • Render individuals docile
  • Hierarchical observation
  • Normalizing judgment
  • The examination
• Bentham's panopticon


  A social control mechanism that became a symbol for modern authority and discipline
• A history of Canada's correctional system

  • First penitentiary in Canada built in 1835
  • Came under federal responsibility in 1868
  • Reforms in the 1960s and 1990s focused on offenders' rights and rehabilitation
• Federal or provincial??


  • Provincial or territorial correctional facilities deal with people sentenced to 2 years (less a day), held on remand, sentenced to community service, on probation, or are children/youth
  • Federal correctional facilities deal with adults sentenced to 2+ years
• Types of sentences


  • Concurrent sentence
  • Consecutive sentence
  • Intermittent sentence
  • Conditional sentence
• The federal level: Correctional Service of Canada


  • Manages federal prisons with varying levels of security
  • Supervises offenders conditionally released into the community
  • Supervises sentences of two or more years in federal prison
  • Assists offenders to move back into the community
• The provincial level: Ontario Corrections


  • Correctional centers house sentenced offenders serving 60 days to 2 years less a day
  • Detention centers hold prisoners on remand, offenders sentenced to short terms, and those awaiting transfer
  • Jails hold inmates until their case is resolved, who are awaiting trial or sentencing, are serving short sentences, or are awaiting transfers
• Issues in the Canadian correctional system

  • Overcrowding
  • Racial profiling
  • Overrepresentation
• Alternatives to prison: rehabilitation
• Overcrowding


  When the number of inmates in an institution or in a living unit exceeds its rated capacity
• Increased pressure placed on correctional facilities - negative effects on inmates as well as the staff and institution
• Overcrowding


  • Orange is the new black
• Racial profiling


  The act of suspecting, targeting or discriminating against a person on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, or nationality, rather than on individual suspension or available evidence
• Racial profiling disproportionately affects black and indigenous individuals as well as other members of other racialized groups
• Racial profiling has serious and pervasive negative impacts on individuals and communities
• Canadian researchers have paid more attention to the large number of racialized people - particularly black and indigenous people - who are victimized by crimes, arrested and convicted of crimes, or both
• Alternatives to prison


  Rehabilitation and restorative justice
• Michael Ignatieff, a former leader of the official opposition of Canada: 'Prison makes almost everybody worse who's in there'
• Use of alternatives to incarceration

  • They give courts more sentencing options
  • They save taxpayers money
  • They strengthen families and communities
  • They protect the public by reducing crime
• Parole


  A type of community supervision generally available to offenders after serving a certain period of their sentence in prison
• Probation


  A type of sentence and alternative to jail, with the goal of providing a second chance to persons guilty of certain crimes
• Community corrections


  • Supervision
  • Programming
  • Community involvement
• Intermediate housing


  Used as an intermediate housing option to help person return from prison to the community after serving a prison sentence
• Electronic home monitoring (EHM)


  Home confinement is a type of conditional sentence except that the offender serves the sentence outside of jail, under strict, jail like conditions in their home
• Restorative justice


  An approach to justice that seeks to repair harm by providing an opportunity for those harmed and those who take responsibility for the harm to communicate about and address their needs in the aftermath of a crime