Report on Inefficiencies and Ineffectiveness in the Canadian Criminal Justice System

The Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute released a comprehensive review of Canada's criminal justice system earlier this week.

Entitled Justice on Trial: Inefficiencies and ineffectiveness in the Canadian criminal justice system, the report by Scott Newark looks how well the criminal justice system is performing in areas such as 
delays and length of trials:

"This paper recommends that the Criminal Code should be amended to create select hybrid offences with an option for a sentence of five years less one day, to reduce significantly the number of cases requiring preliminary inquiry. In addition, part XVIII.1 of the Criminal Code regarding mandatory case resolution procedures should be reviewed by the provinces to ensure it is practically achieving the intended result of expediting case processing and resolution."

"Finally, this paper makes a series of recommendations intended to deal with repeat offenders and administration of justice offences:

• Creation of the Criminal Code offence (s. 145) of breach of a condition of conditional release under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA);
• authorize the Parole Board of Canada to order electronic monitoring of offenders on conditional release;
• amend the CCRA to restrict statutory release eligibility to first time federal offenders and require earned parole for repeat federal custody offenders; and
• amend the CCRA to expressly restrict parole for convicted non-citizens serving a federal sentence for the purpose of immediate removal from Canada."

The report is a companion piece to the the Institute's Report Card on the Criminal Justice System released last week.