Criminology Commons^™

Representations Of Youth Crime In Canada: A Feminist Criminological Analysis Of Statistical Trends, National Canadian Newspapers, And Moral Panics, Jennifer Silcox

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This research explores different representations of youth crime in Canada from a feminist criminological and social constructionist perspective. Using a mixed-methods approach that draws upon historical scholarly works, official governmental crime and court statistics, and national Canadian newspapers, I investigate statistical and media representations of youth crime in Canada.

Official crime and court statistics were analyzed to identify trends in youth crime and how they vary by gender and legislative changes. I provide an historical overview of changing definitions of youth, crime and delinquency, and consider how these combined with changing norms regarding morality to shape youth crime legislation in …

Abortion And Crime In Canada: A Test Of The Bmdl Hypothesis, Timothy Kang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Donohue and Levitt (2001) argued that the legalization of abortion in the US during the 1970s contributed to 50 percent of the dramatic decline in crime that occurred in the 1990s. Although a lengthy debate in the literature has proliferated and remains inconclusive, this controversial theory has been popularized by the Freakonomics (2005) franchise. The liberalization of abortion services that occurred in Canada in 1988 offers an improved focal intervention to perform an empirical test of this theory. The methods that have emerged from the debate are reviewed. The most promising strategies, namely time-series plots of crime, “effective abortion rate” …

Communicating Crimes: Covering Gangs In Contemporary Canadian Journalism, Chris Richardson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this integrated-article dissertation, I examine representations of gangs in Canadian journalism, focusing primarily on contemporary newspaper reporting. While the term “gang” often refers to violent groups of young urban males, it can also signify outlaw bikers, organized crime, terrorist cells, non-criminal social groups, and a wide array of other collectives. I build on Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical framework to probe this ambiguity, seeking to provide context and critical assessments that will improve crime reporting and its reception. In the course of my work, I examine how popular films like West Side Story inform journalists’ descriptions of gangs. Though reporters have …

Access To Justice As A Component Of Citizenship: Reconsidering Policing Services For Canada’S Homeless, Laura Huey, Marianne Quirouette

Sociology Publications

Due to their vulnerability on the streets, it has been frequently reported that the homeless experience high rates of harassment and criminal victimization. And yet, reports of such victimization are rarely made to the police. Failure to report crime has often been conceptualized as a problem for law enforcement, policy makers and social scientists (Skogan 1984). We conceptualize the failure to notify authorities as to the experience of criminal victimization by homeless men, women and youth as a problem directly linked to their status as ‘lesser citizens’, individuals and groups who are more often viewed as the criminal element to …