By Patrick Lussier and Evan McCuish

Objectives

There is empirical evidence that sexual recidivism rates have been dropping for several decades, but it remains unclear whether this drop is an artifact of changing research methodologies over the years. The current study, therefore, examines whether the sexual recidivism drop is robust while accounting for various methodological factors.

Method

The study is based on a systematic review and a quantitative meta-analysis of 468 empirical studies published between 1940 and 2019 that reported sexual recidivism rates. A total of 626 estimations (n = 388,994) of sexual recidivism were retrieved for the study period and of those, 238 were independent observations (n = 196,651). A series of sensitivity analyses were conducted using a meta-regression approach.

Results

A series of meta-regression analyses show that, even after accounting for various methodological factors (e.g., study settings, follow-up length, recidivism criteria), there has been a sexual recidivism rate drop of about 45–60% since the 1970s.

Conclusions

The study findings confirm the presence of a sexual recidivism drop while recognizing that sexual recidivism rates are sensitive to methodological details.

Journal of Criminal Justice

Volume 92, May–June 2024, 102188, p. 16

By Alexa Norton, Andrew Ivsins, Elizabeth Holliday, Christy Sutherland, Thomas Kerr, Mary Clare Kennedy

Background: The ongoing overdose crisis in Canada has prompted efforts to increase access to a “safer supply” of prescribed alternatives to the unregulated drug supply. While safer supply programs predominantly distribute hydromorphone tablets, the Safer Alternatives for Emergency Response (SAFER) program in Vancouver, Canada offers a range of prescribed alternatives, including fentanyl patches. However, little is known about the effectiveness of fentanyl patches as safer supply. Drawing on the perspectives and experiences of program participants, we sought to qualitatively evaluate the effectiveness of the SAFER fentanyl patch program in meeting its intended aims, including reducing risk of overdose by decreasing reliance on the unregulated drug supply. Methods: As part of a larger mixed-methods evaluation of SAFER, semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 17 fentanyl patch program participants between February 2022 and April 2023. Thematic analysis of interview data focused on program engagement, experiences, impacts, and challenges. Results: The flexible program structure, including lack of need for daily dispensation, the extended missed dose protocol, and community pharmacy patch distribution fostered engagement and enhanced autonomy. Improved management of withdrawal symptoms and cravings due to steady transdermal dosing led to reduced unregulated drug use and overdose risk. Participants also experienced economic benefits and improvements in overall health and quality of life. However, skin irritation and patch adhesion issues were key barriers to program retention. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate the value of including fentanyl patch safer supply in the substance use continuum of care and offer insights for innovations in delivery of this intervention.

International Journal of Drug Policy Volume 131, September 2024, 104547

By Esteban Morales, Jaigris Hodson, Yimin Chen, Chandell Gosse, Kaitlynn Mendes, George Veletsianos

Gender-based technology-facilitated violence and abuse (GBTFVA) is a common experience for those engaging with digital technologies in their everyday lives. To better understand why GBTFVA persists, it is necessary to understand the false beliefs and cultural narratives that enable and sustain them. Drawing on the literature on rape myths, this paper explores the prevalence of seven gender-based online violence myths among Canadian men. To achieve this, we adapted the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance (IRMA) (Payne et al., in J Research in Personality 33:27–68, 1999) to assess GBTFVA, and surveyed 1,297 Canadian men between 18 and 30 years old on their GBTFVA beliefs. Our results show that GBTFVA myths and cultural narratives are prevalent across participants, though endorsement levels vary. Four myths were more strongly endorsed: It Wasn’t Really Gender-Based Online Abuse, He Didn’t Mean To, Gender-Based Online Abuse Is a Deviant Event, and She Lied. Overall, these findings help to name and thus begin to address the narratives that sustain and perpetuate gender-based online violence.

Sex Roles (2024) 90:1521–1533 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-024-01514-w

By Shana Conroy and Danielle Sutton

"This Juristat article relies on multiple data sources to examine the nature and prevalence of violent victimization of seniors. In addition, the article presents the various factors associated with perceptions of crime and safety among seniors. Self-reported data from the 2019 General Social Survey on Canadians’ Safety (Victimization) are presented first, detailing seniors’ experiences of violent victimization and their perceptions of safety. The sections that follow present police-reported data from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey and the Homicide Survey, providing detail on annual trends, accused-victim relationships and incident characteristics. While 2020 was an unusual year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, police-reported incident data were similar for 2019 and 2020. As such, this article reports the latest police-reported data from 2020"

Ottawa] : Statistics Canada = Statistique Canada, 2022. 35p.

By Mary Allen and Cristine Rotenberg

In December, 2014, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) changed the laws related to the sex trade, shifting the focus of criminalization from those who sell their own sexual services onto those who purchase sexual services and those who benefit financially from others’ sexual services. This article examines changes in sex-trade-related crime reported by police before and after the change in legislation.Between 2010 and 2019, there was a 55% decline in sex-trade-related crime driven by a 95% decline in incidents of stopping or impeding traffic, or communicating for the purpose of offering, providing or obtaining sexual services. Most of this decline occurred prior to the adoption of the PCEPA in 2014.Fewer women were accused or charged in incidents of stopping or communicating offences after the introduction of the PCEPA. The number of men accused in incidents relating to stopping or communicating offences also dropped considerably between 2010 and 2014. Charging rates also declined for men accused in this type of incident, but not to the same extent.With the drop in charges for stopping or communicating offences, there was a large decline in the number of court cases involving these offences. Fewer women were tried in court for stopping or communicating offences in the five-year period after the new legislation than the five-year period preceding the change (-97%). In addition, far fewer women were found guilty, and, of those, none were sentenced to custody.The PCEPA placed a new focus on activities related to the purchasing of sexual services. Between 2015 and 2017, incidents of the new offence of obtaining sexual services from an adult increased sharply before declining for two consecutive years. Individuals accused in these incidents were mostly men.After the drop in the number of men accused in incidents of stopping or communicating offences prior to the PCEPA, the number of men accused increased once the new legislation was in place (obtaining sexual services from an adult). There was also an increase in men accused in incidents of obtaining sexual services from a minor. Most of the men accused of purchasing sexual services were charged. In the courts, over four in five men tried for obtaining services from a minor were found guilty, and this was the case for about one in seven cases of obtaining sexual services from an adult.The number of police-reported incidents related to profiting from the sexual services of others increased after the change in legislation, as procuring and receiving material benefit incidents reached a high point in 2019, almost double what was reported in 2010.Both before and after the change in legislation, men were more often accused in incidents related to procuring or receiving material benefit than women, even more so after the PCEPA (67% of accused were men prior to the PCEPA and 82% after). This shift was the result of the drop in women accused in these incidents, coupled with a substantial increase in the number of men accused. In the courts, among cases involving a charge related to profiting from sexual services, men were more likely than women to be convicted in the five-year period before and after the PCEPA. Most of those convicted in these cases were sentenced to custody. Though an infrequent offence in terms of the number of cases processed, advertising sexual services offences also saw high conviction rates.After the PCEPA, fewer sex-trade-related offences occurred on the street or in an open area and proportionally more took place in a home or a commercial dwelling unit such as a hotel. This was driven by a considerable decline in offences that are public by definition (i.e., stopping or impeding traffic or communicating offences). The increase in incidents occurring in a home or a commercial dwelling unit is mostly explained by the large increase in incidents of procuring or receiving material benefit as well as the creation of the new offence related to obtaining sexual services from an adult.

Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2021. 29p.

By Catherine Bates, Graham Huggan, Milena Marinko, and Jeffrey Orr

In the March 28, 2006 edition of The Guardian, two news items stand out on Canada. One, a short article by Duncan Campbell, concerns the growing number of US army deserters who have crossed recently into Canada and have sought political asylum there, claiming that they had been tricked by the US military into serving in a manifestly unfair war in Iraq (Campbell 2006, 17). "It’s really great here”, says one successful escapee: “Generally people have been very hospitable and understanding, although there have been a few who have been for the war” (Campbell 2006, 17). The other items, a protest letter signed by, among others, the Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, decries the annual mass cull of seal pups off the shores of northwest Canada, “shot and skinned alive by hunters … [in] one of the largest and most brutal slaughters of marine mammals on the planet” (Banks et al 2006, 31). In response, Widdecombe et al call for a UK trade ban on Canadian products as a way of sending “Canada a signal that enough is enough - we can halt the vicious slaughter on the ice” (Banks et el 2006, 31). The Guardian offers no particular comment here, but a double-page spread in the same edition unambiguously features a black-clad hunter out on the ice in front of his vessel, cudgel poised above an inert seal, with the punning caption “Fate sealed” and the mock-dispassionate reading: “Sealers watch from the deck of their boat as a seal is clubbed off the coast of Newfoundland, on the second day of the annual seal hunt” (Cook 2006, 18-19).

The Central European Association for Canadian Studies, 1st edition, 2007

By: Steven Kohm and Michael Weinrath

This volume of essays was drawn from the conference “Practicing Justice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Crime, Law and Justice” held over three days in May 2010. “Practicing Justice” was the second annual justice-themed event hosted by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Justice Studies (CIJS) at the University of Winnipeg Criminal Justice department. Our hope was to provide a forum for open and intellectual discus sion about justice in all its forms. To this end, we assembled a diverse group of participants including practitioners from the various justice agencies, Honours students from our own program, graduate students from a number of universities across Canada, local researchers, and academics from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds in Canada and the United States. What united all these participants was an interest in the elusive concept of ‘justice.’

The objective of the conference was to examine justice from a variety of standpoints. The practice of justice is all too often characterized by rigid dichotomies and entrenched rivalries: practitioners versus academics; applied researchers versus theoretical scholars; and community versus university. “Practicing Justice” was envisioned as an inclusive forum that might close the gap that separates often divergent perspectives on justice. We firmly believe that in order to understand justice and move toward the practice of justice – however defined – we must first be able to hear and understand others who bring different perspectives to the table.

We must acknowledge the hard work of Professor Richard Jochelson and Kelly Gorkof who a year earlier initiated a bold dialogue across the disciplines which culminated in our inaugural justice-themed conference “Theorizing Justice: Interdisciplining the Divide”. their goal was to “bridge the gap between disciplines, community agents, and institutional forces ... to identify the division between disciplines and to build an inclusive approach. hey cited the words of our keynote speaker Professor John P. Crank – who writes: “one must gather together liberals and conservatives, professionals and academicians, federal and local justice organizations, judges, defence counsel, prosecutors, sworn officers, managers... they all bring something to the table... they all bring a commitment to justice” (Crank, 2003).

The present volume of essays showcases a diversity of perspectives on justice. We are pleased to present submissions from practitioners of justice, Honours and graduate students, and academics of divergent disciplinary backgrounds. The essays that follow both critique conventional understandings of justice and suggest ways to better practice justice, however defined. Some works are highly theoretical and abstract, while others are more hands-on and applied. What unites all these submissions, however, is their commitment to and passion for justice.

Centre for Interdisciplinary Justice Studies (CIJS), Volume 1, Fall 2010

By Joseph Quesnel

Elected Representatives and the media are confused about what police independence means in Canada. Media accuse politicians who address policy issues with police of interfering in police operations. Ongoing pro-Palestinian protests in Canada have led to Canadians questioning police willingness to enforce the law in the face of troubled protest behaviour that has crossed into criminality. Canadians want police to enforce the law unbiasedly and believe police are accountable to the public. In examining the origins and evolution of Canada’s police independence doctrine, this study will show that Canadians have a point as our police are responsible to government ministers, meaning they are accountable to the Canadian public. However, Canadians know that the police must be insulated from political pressures. Canadian history contains examples of elected representatives inappropriately interfering in police operations. Perhaps the term ‘independence’ is inappropriate, given police are subject to laws, policies, and ministerial oversight. Police are autonomous, not independent. The study proposes a model of made-in-Canada democratic policing, allowing politicians to properly converse with police on policy directions while avoiding a form of “governmental policing” where elected representatives too easily influence police operations with partisan politics. Finally, the study’s policy recommendations set Canada toward “apolitical and autonomous” policing.

Winnipeg: Frontier Centre for Public Policy. 2024. 26p.

By Liam Michaud a b, Gillian Kolla c d, Katherine Rudzinski e, Adrian Guta 

The ongoing overdose and drug toxicity crisis in North America has contributed momentum to the emergence of safer supply prescribing and programs in Canada as a means of providing an alternative to the highly volatile unregulated drug supply. The implementation and scale-up of safer supply have been met with a vocal reaction on the part of news media commentators, conservative politicians, recovery industry representatives, and some prominent addiction medicine physicians. This reaction has largely converged around several narratives, based on unsubstantiated claims and anecdotal evidence, alleging that safer supply programs are generating a “new opioid epidemic”, reflecting an emerging alignment among key institutional and political actors. Employing situational analysis method, and drawing on the policy studies and social science scholarship on moral panics, this essay examines news media coverage from January to July 2023, bringing this into dialogue with other existing empirical sources on safer supply (e.g. Coroner's reports, program evaluations, debates among experts in medical journals). We employ eight previously established criteria delineating moral panics to critically appraise public dialogue regarding safer supply, diverted medication, and claims of increased youth initiation to drug use and youth overdose. In detailing the emergence of a moral panic regarding safer supply, we trace historic continuities with earlier drug scares in Canadian history mobilized as tools of racialized poverty governance, as well as previous backlashes towards healthcare interventions for people who use drugs (PWUD). The essay assesses the claims of moral entrepreneurs against the current landscape of opioid use, diversion, and overdose among youth, notes the key role played by medical expertise in this and previous moral panics, and identifies what the convergence of these narratives materialize for PWUD and healthcare access, as well as the broader policy responses such narratives activate.

International Journal of Drug Policy Volume 127, May 2024, 104423

By Christopher S. Carpenter and Hai V. Nguyen

Bans on menthol cigarettes have been adopted throughout the European Union, proposed by the US Food and Drug Administration, and enacted by legislatures in Massachusetts and California. Yet there is very limited evidence on their effects using real-world policy variation. We study the intended and unintended effects of menthol cigarette bans in Canada, where seven provinces banned them prior to a nationwide ban in 2018. Difference-in-differences models using national survey data return no evidence that provincial menthol cigarette bans affected overall smoking rates for youths or adults. Although menthol cigarette smoking fell for both youths and adults, youths increased nonmenthol cigarette smoking, and adults shifted cigarette purchases to unregulated First Nations reserves. Our results demonstrate the importance of accounting for substitution and evasion responses in the design of stricter tobacco regulations

Cambridge, MA:  NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, 2020. 66p.

By Anna Sergi

This paper will investigate narratives, traits, and expectations of Italian-American mafias in North America. The specific case study is the area of Niagara, at the border between New York State, USA and Ontario, Canada. In this context, the artricle will mainly explore narratives and traits of so-called “mafia” families in the city of Hamilton, and their apparent connections with other “mafia” groups on the other side of the borderland, in Buffalo and in Toronto. Through qualitative design adapted from grounded theory methodology with mixed data, including news stories, investigative files and interviews, this article shows how mafias in the borderland of Niagara are conceptualised as hybrid groups, employing different identity “flags”. Mafias appear isomorphic since they imitate each other's structures and (try to) obey traditional mafia rules, to adapt and survive. In line with GT methodology, this paper finally explores an emerging theoretical category, that of the mafia borderland. As a space and identity, mafia borderland helps to sketch traits and expectations of mafia groups in border areas.

Journal of Borderlands Studies, 1-23. 2022

By Mélanie S.S. Seabrook, Alex Luscombe, Nicole Balian, Aisha Lofters, Flora I. Matheson, Braden G. O’neill, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Navindra Persaud, Andrew D. Pinto

This longitudinal study found no consistent correlations between increased police spending and municipal crime rates.

The analysis found that police services are a top budget priority in most municipalities, with up to 26 percent of total expenditures allocated to police. However, the findings revealed net increases in per capita spending are not associated with larger reductions in crime rates.

The authors examined budgets of 20 urban municipalities in Canada: Toronto, Montreal, Peel Region, Calgary, York Region, Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Waterloo Region, Surrey, Quebec City, Hamilton, Halifax, Laval, London, Gatineau, Saskatoon, Burnaby, and Longueuil.

The study looked at police funding and how it varies across Canadian municipalities over a long period of time. The data from 2010 to 2020 showed wide differences in spending. For example, Vancouver spent more than double per capita on policing in 2019 than Quebec City, highlighting the complexity of the interactions between crime rates and police funding.

Other studies have also had mixed results regarding the relationship between police funding and crime. A A 2014 found no clear relationship between crime rates and per capita police expenditures in Canadian provinces, and a 2015 studyof 50 Canadian municipalities found that higher spending on police was associated with higher rates of violent crime, but the direction of the relationship was not established.

Research on police funding is limited in Canada, partly due to the lack of publicly available data on police spending. The study calls for improved publishing of police expenditure data, and for future research to examine whether funding decisions may be based on past crime rates and explore whether investments in police impact future crime rates.

Although the authors do not make specific policy recommendations regarding police budgets, the findings raise questions about the reasoning for such vast differences in police funding across the country despite overall downward crime rates.

Canadian Public Policy, Volume 49 Issue 4, December 2023, pp. pp. 383-398

By Adam Cotter

Criminal victimization in Canada, 2019: Highlights

 According to the General Social Survey (GSS) on Victimization, more than three-quarters (78%) of Canadians were very or somewhat satisfied with their personal safety from crime in 2019.

 One in five (19%) Canadians or their households were impacted by one of the eight crimes measured by the GSS in 2019. There were 8.3 million incidents of sexual assault, robbery, physical assault, break and enter, theft of motor vehicles (or parts), theft of household or personal property, or vandalism.

 Almost seven in ten (69%) self-reported incidents were non-violent in nature. Theft of personal property, the most common crime type, accounted for more than one-third (37%) of all criminal incidents.

 Women (106 incidents per 1,000 women) were violently victimized at a rate nearly double that of men (59 incidents per 1,000 men) in 2019. This gender difference is a result of the fact that women were five times more likely than men to be a victim of sexual assault (50 versus 9 per 1,000).

……

Criminal Victimization in Canada, 2019.

By Ernesto Ugo Savona, Francesco Calderoni, Alessia Maria Remmerswaal

This report provides an analysis of selected possible understudied organized crime activities present in the Canadian context, contributing to the knowledge on both of the nature and the scope of organized crime. The analysis involved an extensive review of the literature and available data on organized crime activities in Canada, and a discussion of the existing state of organized crime literature in the international context. The analysis was based on available literature, official reports and informed speculations. Given the difficulty in gathering information about understudied activities, an in-depth analysis of such activities was not always possible. Nonetheless, the findings show the possible involvement of organized crime in some activities. Selected understudied organized crime activities were identified and analysed.

Ottawa: Public Safety Canada, 2011. 38p.