Celebrate summer learning by challenging yourself with our selection of publications by CrimSL faculty and graduate students!
All English-language picks are available from U of T Libraries.
CrimSL PhD student Jessica Bundy co-authored All Things Considered: A Collaborative Critical Autoethnography of Emerging Racialized Scholars, first published online in May 2023 in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 22.
Abstract: The literature is rife with problematizations of researcher positionality (Lin, 2015; Milner IV, 2007; Sheldon, 2017). The discussion of positionality ranges from researchers not acknowledging their own and others’ positionality (Lin, 2015; Milner IV, 2007), being aware of the position of research studies one reads (Lin, 2015), or not continually deconstructing one’s own identity throughout the course of the research they conduct (Sheldon, 2017). We confront the issue through the lens of a collaborative critical autoethnography between burgeoning researchers. As racialized cis-women in the academy, we examine our experiences through the interstices of belonging – nominally excluded from belonging in both the academy and the community. Through this work, we confront the question of how we, as racialized cis-women in the academy, confront and navigate the complex dynamics of race, class, and gender when approaching research in our own communities. Our experiences are framed within critical race theory, which assists in demonstrating the ways in which the racialized and gendered dynamics of marginalization in an seemingly inclusive academy are contrasted with the racialized and gendered dynamics of inclusion in ostensibly exclusionary communities. This work extends our knowledge of how individual researchers begin to make sense of it all. Moreover, through this work, our hope for this paper is for those in academia to see themselves, or their colleagues, but also to serve as validation for those yet to come who share these tensions.
Transitional Justice in African Contexts through the Institutionalization of Emotional Affects by CrimSL Professor and Director Kamari Maxine Clarke was published online as a chapter in Jens Meierhenrich, Alexander Laban Hinton, and Lawrence Douglas (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Transitional Justice (online edn, Oxford Academic, 18 Sept. 2023).
Abstract: This chapter explores transitional justice in African contexts through the institutionalization of emotional affects. Over time, the development of the rule of law has led to an increased demand for global justice involving the expansion of judicial institutions. The term transitional justice correlates to a constellation of legalistic modalities ranging from criminal trials to amnesties. The chapter elaborates on the key concepts concerning the African Transitional Justice framework, which focuses on African governance concerned over injustice and inequality in the global order and the use of Pan-Africanist emotional affects. It considers how consistent patterns of controversy and conflict within justice narratives forced the re-examination of the making of international justice frameworks.
The Early Warning, Early Response (EWER) project published its report Village Monitoring Systems: Nigeria Early Warning Early Response in Kaduna, Platuea, Taraba & Zamfara States, September 1, 2021 - August 31, 2023. The grassroots human rights initiative of the CLEEN Foundation Nigeria, the University of California Los Angeles and the University of Toronto was led by Professor Clarke. CrimSL PhD candidate Wumi Asubiaro Dada contributed as project advisor. See also CrimSL news post ‘Early Warning, Early Response’ program empowers Nigerians to defend their communities.
Clarke also wrote the Preface for Cultural Expertise, Law and Rights: A Comprehensive Guide, edited by Livia Holden and published open access by Routledge in May 2023.
Criminal Justice Reform and the Mass Imprisonment of Indigenous People in Canada by CrimSL Jane B. Sprott (CrimSL PhD), Cheryl Marie Webster (CrimSL PhD) and CrimSL Professor Emeritus Tony Doob was published in Justice, Indigenous People and Canada: A Story of Courage and Resistance, edited by Kathryn M. Campbell and Stephanie Wellman. (Routledge, Studies in Crime and Society series, 2024).
Summary: Justice, Indigenous Peoples, and Canada: A History of Courage and Resilience brings together the work of a number of leading researchers to provide a broad overview of criminal justice issues that Indigenous people in Canada have faced historically and continue to face today. Both Indigenous and Canadian scholars situate current issues of justice for Indigenous peoples, broadly defined, within the context of historical realities and ongoing developments.
By examining how justice is defined, both from within Indigenous communities and outside of them, this volume examines the force of Constitutional reform and subsequent case law on Indigenous rights historically and in contemporary contexts. It then expands the discussion to include theoretical considerations, particularly settler colonialism, that help explain how ongoing oppressive and assimilationist agendas continue to affect how so-called "justice" is administered. From a critical perspective, the book examines the operation of the criminal justice system, through bail, specialized courts, policing, sentencing, incarceration and release. It explores legal frameworks as well as current issues that have significantly affected Indigenous peoples, such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, human rights, resurgence and identity. This unique collection of perspectives exposes the disconcerting agenda of historical and modern-day Canadian federal government policy and the continued denial of Indigenous rights to self-determination. It is essential reading for those interested in the struggles of the Indigenous peoples in Canada as well as anyone studying race, crime and justice.
Sprott and Doob, as appointed (2021) members of the Structured Intervention Unit Implementation Advisory Panel of the Public Safety Minister (Canada) looking into solitary confinement in federal penitentiaries, contributed to the panel's annual reports, the most recent of which is 2022 to 2023 Annual Report. The third annual report should be released in summer 2024.
El Estado Penal Dual: La crisis del Derecho penal desde una perspectiva histórico-comparada by CrimSL cross-appointed Professor Markus Dubber is a Spanish translation by Vicente Valiente Ivañez, published by Marcial Pons in 2024, of The dual penal state: the crisis of criminal law in comparative-historical perspective published by Oxford University Press in 2018.
CrimSL PhD student Jamie Duncan co-authored Why data about people are so hard to govern, published in Regulation & Governance, April 2024.
Abstract: How data on individuals are gathered, analyzed, and stored remains largely ungoverned at both domestic and global levels. We address the unique governance problem posed by digital data to provide a framework for understanding why data governance remains elusive. Data are easily transferable and replicable, making them a useful tool. But this characteristic creates massive governance problems for all of us who want to have some agency and choice over how (or if) our data are collected and used. Moreover, data are co-created: individuals are the object from which data are culled by an interested party. Yet, any data point has a marginal value of close to zero and thus individuals have little bargaining power when it comes to negotiating with data collectors. Relatedly, data follow the rule of winner take all—the parties that have the most can leverage that data for greater accuracy and utility, leading to natural oligopolies. Finally, data's value lies in combination with proprietary algorithms that analyze and predict the patterns. Given these characteristics, private governance solutions are ineffective. Public solutions will also likely be insufficient. The imbalance in market power between platforms that collect data and individuals will be reproduced in the political sphere. We conclude that some form of collective data governance is required. We examine the challenges to the data governance by looking a public effort, the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, a private effort, Apple's “privacy nutrition labels” in their App Store, and a collective effort, the First Nations Information Governance Centre in Canada.
CrimSL PhD Alex Luscombe and PhD candidate Jamie Duncan co-authored Using Reddit Data to Refine Vaccine Messaging for a Plan-Do-Study-Act Communications Approach published in Healthcare Quarterly 26(4) in January 2024.Abstract: Language expressed in online forums can highlight which pro-vaccination messages intensify vaccine skepticism and which messages resonate with different populations. This study examined Reddit (an online discussion forum) to analyze what anonymous Canadians disclosed about their rationales for getting vaccinated against COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic. The investigation examined 266 Canadian subreddits (sub-forums on specific topics on Reddit) and evaluated 79 English-language phrases that people commonly use on Reddit to express the reason(s) why they (or someone close to them) chose to get vaccinated/boosted for COVID-19. The findings suggest that machine-learning techniques hold out the promise of a real-time approach toward public health messaging via an iterative Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle.
CrimSL Professor Beatrice Jauregui's paper Police work and the politics of expendability in India was published open access online on April 6, 2024 in Security Dialogue.
Abstract: This article examines how rank-and-file police in contemporary India express work-related grievances regarding official neglect of their well-being, systemic exploitation by government authorities and other elites, and routinized threats of bodily harm and death. It analyzes these experiences as manifestations of a ‘politics of expendability’ through which police, conceived as security laborers, are ironically condemned to exclusion from a morally and materially ‘good life’, and only partially or superficially compensated for the often questionably licit kinds of work demanded of them. Conceiving this politics as both intersecting with and reflective of broader structures of systemic inequality and oppressive violence, I consider recent cases of constables publicly complaining about their working and living conditions through social media, quitting their jobs, and dying by suicide as signs of resignation-cum-protest. In so doing, I demonstrate how the social demands for police work as security labor are co-configured with a devaluation of police life that produces affects of despair and structures of disposability. Rethinking the globalized paradox of police demonization-cum-valorization, this study raises challenging questions about how police in India – as well as in other contexts, and especially in Global South postcolonies – may be conceived as expendable workers. It further considers how, moving forward, we must work to reimagine what policing as institutionalized security labor and police work are – and ought to be.
CrimSL PhD canadidate Tyler King co-authored Documenting the Document: The Forensic Hospital Report and Its Knowledge Moves, published open access in Social & Legal Studies, 33(3), 309-327. It was first published online July 10, 2023. See also CrimSL web news post New paper by Tyler King stresses the importance of material objects, and not just humans, in legal decision-making.
Abstract: Drawing on case files from a Canadian provincial review board tasked with determining the disposition of persons found ‘not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder’, we explore the role of the forensic hospital report in the production of medico-legal risk knowledges. Through a detailed case study, we show how the report's content and particular material form allow the Board to produce the ‘significantly threatening individual’ – the very thing the Board (and report) are meant to presuppose. We therefore call on scholars to document their documents, and, in the spirit of actor-network theory (ANT), to analytically treat socio-legal objects as active participants in knowledge's creation. By accounting for the ‘knowledge moves’ the hospital report might allow, encourage, or prohibit human actors to make, we hope even ANT sceptics can use these tools to better understand various legal decision-making processes and their effects.
King also co-authored Disciplinary Paternalism and Resistance in Ontario’s Forensic Mental Health System, published in Critical Criminology August 11, 2023.
Abstract: This manuscript offers a critical intervention in the forensic mental health scholarship. Our analysis of twenty-six appeal case files reveals that the Ontario Review Board (hereafter ORB)–the body responsible for those deemed not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder–engages in processes of normalization expressed paternalistically and extending into life domains that do not directly portend a threat to public safety, most notably employment and housing, personal appearance, and civility. We document how the ORB–in conjunction with the treatment team–governs the subjectivity of some NCR individuals, ambiguously demarcating what qualifies as appropriate insight and motivation. We argue that in some instances the ORB seeks to produce individuals who are self-regulating, self-reliant, and engaged in socially-approved structured activities. Resistance to this disciplinary paternalism is sometimes pathologized, perceived as an indicator of risk. We call for a re-imagining of the forensic mental health system.
Constructing Risk through Jurisdictional Talk: The Ontario Review Board Process under Part XX.1 of the Criminal Code, also co-authored by King, was published in the Canadian Journal of Law and Society and published online by Cambridge University Press on August 4, 2023.
Abstract: The Ontario Review Board (ORB) makes and reviews dispositions that limit the freedoms of individuals found not criminally responsible (NCR) due to a “mental disorder.” Their dispositions must be responsive to the risk NCR individuals pose to the public. To assess how risk is measured, the authors studied twenty-six publicly accessible court files pertaining to the appeal of ORB dispositions. The authors studied hospital reports, the ORB’s dispositions, and transcripts of ORB hearings found in the court files. In this paper, the authors draw on institutional ethnography and critical legal theories of jurisdiction to analyze how certain citational practices—namely citation of closely related statutes and the ORB’s procedures—participate in structuring the ORB’s analysis of risk. The authors argue that risk becomes legible to participants in the NCR process through the intertextual mediation of these citations, which legitimize and naturalize the NCR individuals’ dependence on forensic institutions.
Jurisdictional overlap: The juxtaposition of institutional independence and collaboration in police wrongdoing investigations by CrimSL postdoctoral fellow Jihyun Kwon was published in April 2024 in Regulation & Governance, Volume 18, Issue 2: Special Issue on: Regulation and Development.
Abstract: Introducing multiple layers of “independent” structures has become a go-to strategy for public agent oversight. The question remains whether such decentralized, overlapping structural arrangements of oversight reduce regulatory uncertainty and produce better policy outcomes. Using the case study of Ontario, Canada, I examine the consequences of institutional layering for the specific and broader goal of independent oversight and democratic policing, respectively. Semi-structured interviews with oversight officials and other key stakeholders as well as past governmental reports that led to the police oversight reform are analyzed to study the gap between the policy intention and outcome. I found that multiple “independent” investigatory agencies are meant to operate concurrently within an integrated system to ensure a responsive and comprehensive oversight system. However, their structural separation obstructs collaboration among the external agencies, causing various dysfunctional bureaucratic behaviors that undermine the overarching intention. The disconnect among different oversight authorities exacerbates their reliance on internal police-led procedures for all police misconduct inquiries. Implications of my research extend beyond policing and further the study of overlapping regulatory oversight and structural reform through institutional layering.
CrimSL Research Analyst Ricardo Medina Rico co-authored Víctimas colectivas en el marco del conflicto armado en Colombia, published in April 2024 by Editorial Tirant lo Blanch.
CrimSL cross-appointed Professor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah authored or co-authored several published papers in the last 12 months:
- Owusu-Bempah, A., Wallace, D., Gaston, S., Eason, J., & Sevell, E. (2024). Assessing the Impact of Cannabis Decriminalization on Racial Disparities in Chicago’s Cannabis Possession Arrests. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity.
- Fataar, F., Driezen, P., Owusu-Bempah, A., & Hammond, D. (2024). Distribution of legal retail cannabis stores in Canada by neighbourhood deprivation. Journal of Cannabis Research, 6(1), 5.
- Fataar, F., Driezen, P., Owusu-Bempah, A., & Hammond, D. (2023). Cannabis-related arrests and convictions in Canada: Differences by race/ethnicity, individual socioeconomic factors, and neighborhood deprivation. Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse, 1-20.
- Owusu-Bempah, A., Nicholson Jr, H. L., Butler, A., Croxford, R., & Kouyoumdjian, F. G. (2023). Opioid toxicity deaths in Black persons who experienced provincial incarceration in Ontario, Canada 2015–2020: A population-based study. Preventive Medicine, 177, 107778.
- Seabrook, M.S., Luscombe, A., Balian, N., Lofters, A., Matheson, F.I., O’neill, B.G., Owusu-Bempah, A., Persaud, N. and Pinto, A.D., (2023). Police Funding and Crime Rates in 20 of Canada's Largest Municipalities: A Longitudinal Study. Canadian Public Policy, 49(4), 383-398.
- Fataar, F., Driezen, P., Owusu‐Bempah, A., & Hammond, D. (2023). Patterns of problematic cannabis use in Canada pre‐and post‐legalisation: Differences by neighbourhood deprivation, individual socioeconomic factors and race/ethnicity. Drug and Alcohol Review, 42(6), 1534-1546.
- Butler, A., Croxford, R., Bodkin, C., Akbari, H., Bayoumi, A. M., Bondy, S. J., ... & Kouyoumdjian, F. (2023). Burden of opioid toxicity death in the fentanyl-dominant era for people who experience incarceration in Ontario, Canada, 2015–2020: a whole population retrospective cohort study. BMJ open, 13(5), e071867.
The Judicial System of Russia by CrimSL Professor Emeritus Peter H. Solomon, Jr., and Kathryn Hendley was published December 21, 2023 by Oxford University Press.
The Judicial System of Russia paints a portrait of the courts of the Russian Federation under Putin, how they work in practice, and what shapes the behaviour of its judges and the other key players. Taking a socio-legal approach, it stresses the dual nature of the judicial system, where ordinary cases are, for the most part, handled fairly but where cases of interest to powerful persons are subject to influence—a common situation in authoritarian states. The book covers both the Constitutional Amendments of 2020 and developments relating to the first months of the 2022 war in Ukraine. ... It is a must-read for academics, practitioners, and all those with an interest in comparative courts and Russia’s judicial system. - excerpted from publisher's description.
The book is part of the series "Judicial Systems of the World" edited by David S. Law and Bryant Garth.
CrimSL PhD candidate Diego Tuesta co-authored Penal extractivism: A qualitative study on punishment and extractive industries in Peru, published online in Punishment & Society on June 8, 2024. See CrimSL news item New paper by Diego Tuesta brings together extractivism and punishment studies.
Abstract: This article introduces the concept of penal extractivism in the punishment and society literature. We define penal extractivism as the punitive strategies that a state implements to safeguard extractive industries from citizens’ contention. This concept addresses the limitations of categories like criminalization, protest policing, social control, and labour discipline while bridging the gap between punishment studies and research on extractive industries. Additionally, we draw upon evidence of the Espinar mining conflict in Peru to explain five punitive strategies the state uses to handle protests: (1) off-duty policing and critical assets legislation, (2) state of emergency declarations, (3) police or prosecutorial notes against environmental defenders, (4) criminal indictments, and (5) the transferring of criminal cases to distant jurisdictions. Based on our findings, we argue that penal extractivism is a dynamic and ambivalent project that targets marginalized rural populations. The state partially deters mobilizations but fails to address the underlying social unrest, reinforcing the conditions that perpetuate mining conflicts. This in-depth within-case analysis examines the relationship between punishment and extractivism in the global context of contemporary social mobilizations.
CrimSL PhD candidate Jona Zyfi co-authored Vulnerability of Asylum Seekers and Undocumented Migrants in Toronto, published in Canadian Journal of Law and Society / Revue Canadienne Droit et Société online on April 5, 2024.
Abstract: This article examines the underlying structural elements contributing to the vulnerability experienced by asylum seekers and undocumented migrants across two critical domains: refugee eligibility examination and accessibility of essential social services, particularly healthcare. By drawing insights from fieldwork conducted in Toronto between 2020 and 2022, this article investigates how migrants navigate and perceive vulnerability encountered both at the front-end of the refugee status determination and while trying to access social services. It discusses the perspectives of key stakeholders, including lawyers, representatives of immigrant-focused non-profit organizations, and municipal officials, shedding light on their experiences and insights regarding the challenges faced by migrants. Furthermore, this article critically evaluates Canada’s adherence to the principles articulated in the 2018 United Nations Global Compacts on Migration and Refugees concerning the mitigation of vulnerability among migrant populations.
Zyfi also co-authored Reviewing the reviews: the Global Compacts' added value in access to asylum procedures and immigration detention, published in Frontiers in Human Dynamics, Volume 5, on November 22, 2023.
Abstract: The Global Compact for Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees are based on binding international law instruments whose provisions they complement with “best practice” standards related to the treatment of refugees and other migrants. Although the Compacts are non-binding, they provide for review mechanisms to promote compliance with Compact standards. Such oversight is important to achieve progress in implementing the Compacts' commitments. Yet, the current top-down and State-led review process does not offer an efficient platform for identifying cases of non-adherence to Compact standards. This article uses a case study approach to highlight instances of non-compliance with Compact standards in Canada, South Africa, and the European Union. We use a functionalist method of comparison to analyze State practice in these three regions in relation to (i) use of immigration detention and (ii) access to the asylum procedure, with access to healthcare as a cross-cutting issue. The article discusses how the Compacts' review mechanisms could be improved and their added value in terms of their impact on domestic migration policies. It argues that both Compact review and implementation can be improved through increased civil society participation.