Digital Reading Room 2.0 -- CRJS 480: Corrections and Penology

CRJS 480: Corrections and Penology Report a Broken Link

Welcome to Criminal Justice 480: Corrections and Penology, which provides an overview of the correctional system in Canada. Grounded in empirical evidence, the course explores Canada’s correctional system from the perspectives of researchers, policy makers, the public, offenders, and correctional staff through an examination of both the historical and current policies and practices that shape Canadian corrections.

Unit 1: Overview of the Criminal-Justice Process

Canada. Criminal Code, R.S.C., 1985, c. C–46.

Please read Sections 718, 717, 730–732, 734, 737–738 (note that if you use the table of contents link to 737.1: Restitution, you will have to page up to 737: Victim Surcharge), 742, 745, and 752.

Note that not all sections are listed in the table of contents, but they are in the document. Simply choose the closest section before the one you want in the table of contents, and then page down.

Canada. Corrections and Conditional Release Act, S.C., 1992, c. 20.

Please read Sections 3 and 100.

Unit 2: Correctional Structures, Policies, and Practices over Time

Correctional Service of Canada. (1982). A summary of analysis of major inquiries on corrections, 1938 to 1977. Government of Canada.

McGowen, R. (1994). Civilizing punishment: The end of the public execution in England. Journal of British Studies, 33(3), 257–282.

Supplemental Reading

Gilmore, K. (2000). Slavery and prison—Understanding the connections. Social Justice, 27(3),195–205.

Harding, R. W., Rynne, J., & Thomsen, L. (2019). History of privatized corrections. Criminology and Public Policy, 18(2), 241–267.

Unit 3: Why We Punish, Theories of Punishment, and Deterrence and Incapacitation

Paternoster, R. (2010). How much do we really know about criminal deterrence? Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 100(3), 765–823.

Please read the following selections—note the page numbers.

I. Introduction (pp. 766–767)
II. A Brief Intellectual History of Deterrence Theory in Criminology, Part A. Intellectual Roots (pp. 767–773)
III. Basic Principles of Deterrence Theory (pp. 782–787)
IV. The Relationship Between Objective Sanctions and Crime Rates, Part B. The Role of Imprisonment in Deterrence (pp. 800–804)
V. The Link Between the Objective and Perceptual Properties of Punishment (pp. 804–810)
VI. The Link Between Perceived Sanction Threats and Crime (pp. 811–818)

Doob, A. N., & Webster, C. M. (2003). Sentence severity and crime: Accepting the null hypothesis. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and Justice, 30, 143–195.

Nagin, D. S., Cullen, F. T., & Jonson, C. L. (2009). Imprisonment and reoffending. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and Justice, 38, 115–200.

Please read “I. Perspectives on Imprisonment” (pp. 122–128).

Supplemental Reading

Chen, E. Y. (2008). Impacts of “three strikes and you’re out” on crime trends in California and throughout the United States. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 24(4), pp. 345–370.

Unit 4: Rehabilitation and Proportionality in Sentencing

Cullen, F. T. (2013). Rehabilitation: Beyond nothing works. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and Justice, 42, 299–376.

Please read

I. The Rehabilitative Ideal (pp. 307–314)
II. Sudden Decline (pp. 314–334)
III. Optimism: What Works (pp. 335–346)
IV. The Future of Rehabilitation (pp. 346–358)
V. Conclusion (pp. 358–361)

Forsberg, L., & Douglas, T. (2020). What is criminal rehabilitation? Criminal Law and Philosophy, 16, 103–126.

Barnett, G. D., & Fitzalan Howard, F. (2018). What doesn’t work to reduce reoffending? A review of reviews of ineffective interventions for adults convicted of crimes. European Psychologist, 23(2), pp. 111–129.

Please read “Discussion: What Appears to Be Less Effective at Reducing Reoffending and What Is Associated with Harm?” (pp. 123–126).

Unit 5: Retributive, Hybrid, and Other Theories of Justice

Carlsmith, K. M., & Darley, J. M. (2008). Psychological aspects of retributive justice. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, 40, 193–236.

Please read the following selections—note the page numbers.

Abstract (p. 194)
1. Retributive Justice, in Relation to Other Kinds of Justice (pp. 194–197)
2.4. Retribution to 2.8. General Deterrence (pp. 199–202)
5. Conclusion (pp. 233–235)

Doob, A. N., & Webster, C. M. (2016). Weathering the storm? Testing long-standing Canadian sentencing policy in the twenty-first century. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and Justice, 45, 359–418.

Rogers, R., & Ventura Miller, H. (2019). Restorative justice. In M. Deflem (Ed.), The handbook of social control (pp. 167–180). Wiley Blackwell.

Unit 6: Types of Institutions, Inmate Case Classification and Management, Prison Treatment Programs, and Special-Category Offenders

Correctional Service Canada. (2015). Beyond the fence: A virtual tour of a Canadian penitentiary. Government of Canada.

Note that you can take a simpler version of the tour in HTML format.

Motiuk, L. (1997). Classification for correctional programming: The offender intake assessment (OIA) process. Forum on Corrections Research, 9(1), 18–22.

Montford, K. S., & Hannah-Moffat, K. (2021, July–August). The veneers of empiricism: Gender, race and prison classification. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 59.

Crewe, B., & Ievins, A. (2020). The prison as a reinventive institution. Theoretical Criminology, 24(4), 568–589.

Unit 7: Mass Incarceration, Subcultures and the Inmate Code, and Gangs

Jarecki, E., writ. & dir. (2012). The house I live in [Film]. Charlotte Street Films. The Internet Archive. (1:49 hr)

Butler, M., Slade, G., & Dias, C. N. (2022). Self-governing prisons: Prison gangs in an international perspective. Trends in Organised Crime, 25, 1–6.

Weide, R. D. (2020). The invisible hand of the state: A critical historical analysis of prison gangs in California. The Prison Journal, 100(3), 312–331.

Tetrault, J. E. C., Bucerius, S. M., & Haggerty, K. D. (2019). Multiculturalism under confinement: Prisoner race relations inside western Canadian prisons. Sociology, 54(3), 534–555.

Unit 8: Correctional Officers, Illicit Drugs, and Communicable Diseases

Ricciardelli, R., Pratt, K., & Idzikowski, M. (2021). Care, custody, control, and the preservation of life: The complexity of correctional officer work. Journal of Crime and Justice, 44(1), 1–15.

Bucerius, S. M., & Haggerty. K. D. (2019). Fentanyl behind bars: The implications of synthetic opiates for prisoners and correctional officers. International Journal of Drug Policy, 71, 133–138.

Monks, L., dir., & Hadock, L., presenter. (2016, November 7). Breaking into prison: Drug smuggling on the inside [Film]. Antidote Productions/BBC Three. YouTube. (17:33 min)

Ricciardelli, R., Bucerius, S., Tetrault, J., Crewe, B., & Pyrooz, D. (2021). Correctional services during and beyond COVID-19. FACETS, 6, 490–516.

Optional Exercise

Correctional Service Canada. (2019). Self-assessment questionnaires (correctional officer [CX-01] questionnaire and primary worker/kimisinaw [CX-02] questionnaire). Government of Canada.

Unit 9: Release and Re-Entry into Society

Corrections and Conditional Release Act, S.C., 1992, c. 20.

Please read Sections 100–102, 115–116, and 119–121.

Note that not all sections are listed in the table of contents, but they are in the document. Simply choose the closest section before the one you want in the table of contents, and then page down.

Doob, A. N, Webster, C. M., & Manson, A. (2014). Zombie parole: The withering of conditional release in Canada. Criminal Law Quarterly, 61(3), 301–328.

Ackerman, N., Pahlke, A., & MacInnes, T. (Dir.). (2019). Conviction [Film]. Sea to Sea and The National Film Board of Canada. (1:18 hr)

Sheppard., A., & Ricciardelli, R. (2020). Employment after prison: Navigating conditions of precarity and stigma. European Journal of Probation, 12(1), 34–52.