Justice

This handbook was produced for use in the prison advocacy training part of the Human Rights in Action (HRIA) project. The HRIA project is dedicated to ensuring that the human rights of all prisoners are protected, especially those of women prisoners who are racialized and those with disabling mental health issues.

This handbook provides information on various aspects of the federal Youth Criminal Justice Act, which became law on April 1, 2003. This book includes the following chapters:

This paper is an attempt to describe the evolution of Canadian juvenile justice legislation and compares the principles and practice of the Juvenile Delinquents Act, the Young Offenders Act, and the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The impact that each Act had (or will have) on the youth justice system will also be considered.

It includes the following information:

The focus of this paper is on the continuance of Youth Justice Committees (YJCs) under the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) and their importance and effect on dealing with youth crime in Alberta.

This document looks at low literacy and the administrative justice system, making recommendations for the use of plain language when working with clients with marginal literacy skills who are faced with an unfamiliar environment, unknown administrative processes, and difficult legal language when dealing with legal processes.

In the winter of 1999, Jane Boulton, the Program Manager of Smithers Literacy Services had a burning question, "Why don't inmates access my program on return to the community? I know they are out there and have a need for literacy services, but where are they?" In conversations with other literacy practitioners in the region, Jane found she was not alone in this conundrum.

In the midst significant developments in Canada's drug policies, the John Howard Society of Canada implemented the Policy Analysis Enhancement Project (PAEP). The PAEP is a two-year project that takes select members of voluntary sector organizations and guides them through the creation of policy-relevant research related to Canadian drug policy. This volume presents the research undertaken by the second-year participants of project.

This document discusses major changes being considered by the Canadian government on the issue of drug laws and policies.

The Literacy is for Life Fact Sheet series is a series of two-pager highlights on literacy and related topics.

This Fact Sheet highlights Literacy and Justice. “Without literacy there can be no justice.” (Burt Galaway, John Howard Society, 1997.)

Persimmon Blackbridge, a BC sculptor, collaborated with Michelle Christianson and Lyn MacDonald on Doing Time, a work of sculpture and words depicting the external and internal experiences of women in prison. This article, also a collaboration, attempts to include some of those experiences as well as discuss the nature of the art that depicts them.