Differences And Similarities Between The Canadian And American Criminal Justice System

Canadian Criminals are a major part of Canadian society. In our country if you were not the direct victim of a crime you tend to forget the members of society that take pleasure in causing societies grief. As in the case of James Hutchinson and Richard Ambrose, whose crimes were committed in December of 1974.1 They were convicted of killing two Moncton City Police officers. Today, years after the murders were committed Ambrose and Hutchinson are still the center of a major controversy that has plagued our parole system. In order to fully understand the controversy that Ambrose and Hutchinson posses you must look at the

Canada’s Criminal Justice system offers youth justice courts which have exclusive jurisdiction over cases involving young persons. They are specialized so that they only handle cases involving young persons. Youth cases are also held in their own courtrooms in local courthouses. These youth courts are open to the public like all Canadian courts, but due to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, youth still have privacy rights the identifies of youth cannot be publicized, unlike in adult court.

The Canadian jurisdiction has four levels of courts, except Nunavut, that allocates with criminal cases. The levels of courts are; provincial and territorial courts, provincial and territorial superior courts, provincial and territorial courts of appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada

When Rome was establishing their legal system they came up with twelve laws for all citizens to follow. Eventually, Canada used this same idea of coming up with laws to cover all crimes or incidents that could possibly happen. Along with the laws, both societies created different consequences for each law if they happened to be broken. When a law was broken the accused must be tried at the courthouse, and  prove whether or not they are guilty. Before the Romans convicted someone of a crime they would try the person in front of a jury in the court. Eventually Canadians also used this method when trying to create a final verdict. Canadians have improved on the legal system, but it is thanks to the Romans for the structure of

Aboriginal men and the Canadian Criminal Justice system have had a long and tragic relationship that has resulted in a mistrust and hatred for law enforcement. Police and Indian Agents were once use as pawns in order to keep Aboriginals on their reserves and out of sight of the average Canadian. Aboriginal's are facing increasing levels of poverty, addiction, homelessness and culture shock due to Canadian mistreatment and racism. This is a major factor behind the number of Aboriginal men in Canadian prisons. “Whilst comprising approximately 8% of the adult population in Saskatchewan First Nations account for 80% of all prison male inmates.(9)” Saskatchewan is not the only province to face these issues of aboriginal over-representation as others

The relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian government has been a troubled one since European first contact that continues even at the early stages of the 21st century. Although this relationship can be observed from a number of different angles, the intent of this paper is to focus specifically on the failures of the criminal justice system while correlating it with the social and economic inequalities that are the root cause of the problem. It will therefore be argued that the criminal justice system has not adapted to adequately address the concerns of the Canadian Aboriginal people. This paper will begin with policing, which is the first stage in the justice system, where an examination of issues will be presented such

The Canadian Constitution gives the power to establish, investigate, and adjudicate crimes with the federal government. The individual provinces are responsible for law enforcement, although in many cases this is contracted to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is a federal agency. The power to prosecute crimes belongs to the federal government, but responsibility for these prosecutions is delegated to the provinces for most types of crime. However, to make the issue more streamlined, laws and sentencing guidelines are fairly uniform throughout the country, but there are varying levels of enforcement based on individual provinces (Boyd, 2011).

Although the Criminal Justice System is one of the most important system in Canada, I find myself knowing little about it. After reading the two assigned chapters, I found that the Criminal Justice System is different than I perceived because it is not as lenient as I believed, and that they have everyones best interest in mind (to an appropriate standard with the accused). In this essay I will further examine my most interesting findings taken from these chapters.

Did you know that there two justice systems? There is the US criminal system and then there is the Circle of Justice. They are used in many parts of the world and are effective. Both of them are have their own ideas of dealing with crime and the punishments that are given out. This essay if going to compare both of them and the one I think is most effective.

The United States system was established based on the justice system of England (Terrill, 2013). The procedures for criminal issues are very much like that of the United States. England practices common law, as is also the case in the United States (Terrill, 2013). English judges also practice the same due process as judges in America. Both countries criminal justice personal have formal training and education requirements (Terrill, 2013). There is a hierarchy of appeals very similar to both countries. The courts in both countries do not discriminate based on sex or religion and they also accept many forms of evidence in criminal justice cases. Both courts also use professional legal representation to defend and prosecute cases (Terrill, 2013). Another helpful similarity is that both countries utilize English as the primary language

The definition of the word “justice” according to Merriam-Webster is, “the quality of being just, impartial, or fair” (“Definition of Justice”). Almost automatically associated with “justice” to many minds is the “criminal ‘justice’ system”—and criminals. Canada’s criminal justice system and the penalties for crimes committed in Canada have been recent topics of discussion preceding this year’s general election. The Conservative Party of Canada promised mandatory minimum sentences for a variety of “serious” crimes, including drug trafficking and violent crimes. This was criticized by the Liberal Party of Canada as well as the New Democratic Party of Canada. Both parties were concerned with an influx of stress on the already crowded system. If “justice” means “fair”, what does that mean for Canada? What does fair look like for the criminal, the victim, and society as a whole? Here lay the debate: what is better for the greater good, a “tough on crime” attitude with harsher sentences for criminals, or rehabilitation of the offender in question with hopes of rejoining society? Perhaps there are also other unexplored and new ideas for dealing with criminal behavior that need to be analyzed in order to objectively make an informed decision. In the coming months and years, the new Canadian government will revisit, revise, and perhaps make significant changes to the way we deal with criminals, and these modifications will

Before the rise of the developed state, crime and social order was maintained through informal social controls, such as ridicule and expulsion. Behaviour was controlled through norms and strong desires to maintain in-group conformity and solidarity. These societies had no centralized agent for formal control. This was known as community justice (Griffiths, 2011, p. 13). As societies developed and evolved, the informal community justice system was replaced by the formal state based justice system. As a result, crime was enforced by designated officials (Griffiths, 2011, p. 13). Despite the advantages of community justice empowering victims and reducing prison sentences, the state based justice system is best used in Canada as it is able to settle disputes between strangers, curb violence and achieve fairness and objectivity.

The Canadian Criminal Justice System (CJS) is a very intricate and complex system, yet it plays such a large role in our society. Although the CJS is a multifaceted system its three main components are: policing, the courts and corrections. In order to fully understand the CJS you must start at its first point of contact with the public, the police. Understanding how the police system functions is vital in grasping the complex topic of the CJS.

The public is full of opinions on how the justice system should work and what laws should be implemented, but there are many misconceptions the public has about the Canadian criminal justice system. One of the biggest misconceptions is the “lenient” sentences that are given to serious offenders. Along with these misconceptions is the information given to the public by mass media, and those in custody or prison have committed a crime. There are many things the public is unaware of due to the lack of understanding they have about the criminal justice system. Much of the information that the public has is based on American television shows, the media, and their perceptions of the performance of justice officials. Information presented may not have all the details, including the everyday minor everyday crimes that happen. Justice officials are constantly confronted with complaints and opinions on how things should be decided and criticisms on decisions that have been made. While the government often takes into consideration the reactions from the public, it is impossible to satisfy all their needs. The public is often misinformed on what is happening around them due to the media affect and lack of understanding.

Canada’s Legal System is based on the English and French systems, they base this system on common law and civil-law, also called Bijuralism. Common law is law that evolved from precedent but is not written as legislation. Civil-law is rules to be a general guidance to problems that arise, courts do look at precedent, but they first look at the rules. Canada is a federation, which means it has a federal parliament that makes laws for all of Canada, and a legislature in each provinces and territories to make laws for their areas.