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Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law

An Examination Of How The Canadian Military's Legal System Responds To Sexual Assault, Elaine Craig Jan 2020

An Examination Of How The Canadian Military's Legal System Responds To Sexual Assault, Elaine Craig

Dalhousie Law Journal

Although the Canadian military has been conducting sexual assault trials for over twenty years, there has been no academic study of them and no external review of them. This review of the military’s sexual assault cases (the first of its kind) yields several important findings. First, the conviction rate for the offence of sexual assault by courts martial is dramatically lower than the rate in Canada’s civilian criminal courts. The difference between acquittal rates in sexual assault cases in these two systems appears to be even larger. Since Operation Honour was launched in 2015 only one soldier has been convicted …


The Bad, The Ugly, And The Horrible: What I Learned About Humanity By Doing Prison Research, Adelina Iftene Jan 2020

The Bad, The Ugly, And The Horrible: What I Learned About Humanity By Doing Prison Research, Adelina Iftene

Dalhousie Law Journal

Every Canadian academic conducting research with humans must submit an ethics application with their university’s Research Ethics Board. One of the key questions in that application inquired into the level of vulnerability of the interviewees. Filling in that question, I had to check nearly every box: the interviewees were incarcerated, old, under-educated, poor, Indigenous or other racial minorities, and likely had mental and physical disabilities. However, it was not until I met John that I understood what all those boxes actually meant. They were signalling that I was entering a universe of extreme marginalization—the universe of the forgotten. I learned …


Committing To Justice: The Case For Impact Of Race And Culture Assessments In Sentencing African Canadian Offenders, Maria C. Dugas Jan 2020

Committing To Justice: The Case For Impact Of Race And Culture Assessments In Sentencing African Canadian Offenders, Maria C. Dugas

Dalhousie Law Journal

Canadian judges have made notable, although too limited, strides to recognize the unique conditions of Black Canadians in sentencing processes and decisionmaking. The use of Impact of Race and Culture Assessments in sentencing people of African descent has gradually gained popularity since they were first introduced in R v “X.” These reports provide the court with the necessary information about the effect of systemic anti-Black racism on people of African descent and how the experience of racism has informed the circumstances of the offence, the offender, and how it might inform the offender’s experience of the carceral state. This paper …