Pros And Cons Of The Canadian Criminal Justice System

Like majority of the world, the Canadian criminal justice system consists of three main parts: the police, the courts and the corrections. These three main parts are responsible for the smooth operations of our criminal justice system. However, there are other factors that can affect the fluency of our system; factors such as the legislations, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, the mass and ever-growing public media, and human behaviours and emotions. It is the intension of the writer of this assignment to point out and discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of the Canadian criminal justice system under the influences of the four factors base on the writer’s academic experience and own thoughts. The first component
of the criminal justice system is the police. They uphold the criminal law by investigating suspects and arresting them.
During this process, the police are allowed to legitimize use of “necessary” force to protect themselves and to successfully arrest suspects. The factors of human behaviours and emotions take effect right from the beginning of the arrest. Depending on the offences, and behaviours, police may hold varies perspectives powered by their emotions, toward suspects and thus may influence the levels of the force used in arrests. The judgement of which level of force to use lies with police, however they are restricted by the legislations and the Charter of Rights and Freedom. There have been constant debates over the definition of “necessity” in using force, but when the public media kicks in, it becomes a circus. The public often hear the phrase “police brutality” in the news and are aware of the crime rates climbing ever higher, but are they always the truth? The mass public media likes to over exaggerate events to attract public’s attention, the medias follow a very strict rule, “if it bleeds, it leads”. (Wade Deisman) In the writer of this assignment’s opinion, the articles and news reports we read or hear are often
one sided, trying to make individual actions link to police as a whole. And the crime rates in Canada is actually steadily decreasing over the years. However, this is not to say the medias are completely telling lies. Cases like the “Starlight Tours” in Saskatchewan in the year 2000 clearly demonstrates racism. Two aboriginal men were found being driven out of town and left outdoor, freezing to death in a -28 degree C evening, by two RCMP officers. There are a lot of similar cases regarding to police misconduct or brutality all over Canada and it is in the writer of this assignment’s opinion that the Canadian police should shape up and drop the FIDO (Fuck It, Drive On) attitude instead of constantly asking for more authority. The second component of the criminal justice system is the courts.
People settle disputes and seek remedy of justice in courts since it was first established in England. Today in Canada, courts must follow certain laws and legislations to ensure that no case will be sentenced without a trial in court. This is to ensure the due process and the fundamental justice in our CJS. However, all these laws, legislations, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom do not always provide people with fairness and justice. In the case of R. v. Sharpe [2001] 2 S.C.R. 45, Sharpe was charged with two counts of possession of child pornography and erotic stories he wrote fantasizing about young boys, titled “Kiddie Kink Classics”. He was acquitted because of his defence using the Charter of Rights and Freedom, the freedom of expression. He argued that he was not going to distribute them and it’s his freedom of expression. Another example is the case of Wilbur Ventling, also freed by the Charter, argued by his defence lawyer that the case has taken too long to go to trial. Which leads us to another common problem in court, is the lengthy time and process it takes for each individual cases. There are limited numbers of judges throughout Canada and only they can decide on cases. This lack of judges results in lengthy time for most cases to appear in courts and not to mention the process in between, where the defence lawyers may ask for more time or try to get technical, and the time for
the police to gather sufficient evidences. More and more plea bargaining take place in our justice system to reduce the time and process of trials, but is it right to reduce sentence to save time and money? Not to mention some of the judges actually like to “shop” for cases. There has been a recent discussion of whether to allow video cameras in court in Canada, pros and cons have been discussed. The positive influences are that it will increase public awareness of the judicial system, it will bring transparency to the judicial system and help open scrutiny of all. The negative influences include that people who do not understand the full procedure of the case may be swayed by the lawyers or medias, it might endanger the security of the legal personnel, trial by media violates the fundamental principle of the due process, and the jury is consisted of non-legal personnel who can easily be swayed by the public’s opinions who are under the influence of the mass public medias. Much similar like the O.J Simpson trial where the public media turned it into a media circus. The final component of the criminal justice system is the corrections. In Canada, there are two types of correctional facilities, one is the federal penitentiary, the other is the provincial prison. Their main purpose is to incarcerate criminals and remove them from the general population and inhibits their ability to perpetrate further crimes. In contrast to the intensions, prisoners actually learn how to improve their criminal skills and knowledge in the prisons, it’s their grad school. Even though, the Canadian corrections focuses on rehabilitation and provide training and psychological councils for the inmates, the public still view the prisons as a form of retribution. Treating the inmates inhumanly and torturing them mentally as forms of payback is only one of the problems in the corrections. Some of the prison guards are rather unfriendly, almost cruel, towards the inmates. Their behaviours may be the result of burn out from their job, or their attitudes driven by their emotions. Another problem about our corrections is the population, it is always nearly full in the prisons. As a solution, we tend to put some of the “harder to deal with” prisoners into the psychiatric hospital and keep them there or to give the accused probations, house arrest and give the inmates paroles. As a result, those who actually require psychiatric help cannot receive them. The parole board is also part of the problem in our correctional system. They grant paroles to inmates without getting feedbacks on how the inmates are doing, whether they are doing ok or re-incarcerated. The parole boards in Canada have no information to compare to their previous decisions, and to better improve their judgements.