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Beyond Incarceration: Safety and True Criminal Justice
A call to replace Canada’s incarceration model, which has proven destructive, discriminatory, expensive, counterproductive, and ― most of all ― unnecessary.
Imprisonment developed in the Western world as the punishment to suit all offences, from violent assault to victimless drug use. Centuries ago, incarcerating convicts represented progress on society’s part, since it came as a replacement for capital punishment, maiming, and torture.
Our current model ― taking away convicts’ freedom and holding them in degrading and unhealthy prison conditions ― promotes recidivism and jeopardizes public safety. It is highly discriminatory, with disproportionate numbers of ethnic, indigenous, mentally ill, drug-dependent, poor, and otherwise marginalized people imprisoned. It is also ruinously expensive.
Elsewhere, alternative correctional systems successfully rehabilitate offenders while treating them with dignity and respect. This book lays out the case for a complete overhaul of Canada’s ineffective incarceration model of criminal justice and for a new approach.
Imprisonment developed in the Western world as the punishment to suit all offences, from violent assault to victimless drug use. Centuries ago, incarcerating convicts represented progress on society’s part, since it came as a replacement for capital punishment, maiming, and torture.
Our current model ― taking away convicts’ freedom and holding them in degrading and unhealthy prison conditions ― promotes recidivism and jeopardizes public safety. It is highly discriminatory, with disproportionate numbers of ethnic, indigenous, mentally ill, drug-dependent, poor, and otherwise marginalized people imprisoned. It is also ruinously expensive.
Elsewhere, alternative correctional systems successfully rehabilitate offenders while treating them with dignity and respect. This book lays out the case for a complete overhaul of Canada’s ineffective incarceration model of criminal justice and for a new approach.
192 pages, Paperback
Published November 28, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 4, 2018
It was definitely challenging to read this, since it is so easy to fall into the belief that the sort of things this book details wouldn't happen in Canada, because we are better than that.
Confronting those ideas, and shedding light on them, is important. We need to do better than we have been, and Mallea offers concrete suggestions on different models of justice we could drawn on in order to a) send fewer people to prison, and b) rehabilitate not only the offender, but the community.
While at first I was just despairing at the state of justice system and prisons, by the end I at least had some hope for a more functional future.
Confronting those ideas, and shedding light on them, is important. We need to do better than we have been, and Mallea offers concrete suggestions on different models of justice we could drawn on in order to a) send fewer people to prison, and b) rehabilitate not only the offender, but the community.
While at first I was just despairing at the state of justice system and prisons, by the end I at least had some hope for a more functional future.
July 4, 2018
Paula Mallea's Beyond Incarceration is a very accessible book geared towards teaching people all about criminal justice in Canada, specifically where we go wrong and potential ways of fixing things. It is carefully written so that it both discusses these issues in a way that can be understood by non-lawyers, but also not overly simplistic. It is obviously a progressive piece, but Mallea supports her points well with evidence. This is definitely going on my list of books I can recommend when people ask me about what I do!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews