{"id":87694,"date":"2023-09-06T11:31:35","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T15:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=87694"},"modified":"2024-09-01T09:54:29","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T13:54:29","slug":"opinion-samantha-mcaleese-discusses-need-for-reform-on-sealing-criminal-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2023\/09\/opinion-samantha-mcaleese-discusses-need-for-reform-on-sealing-criminal-records\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: Samantha McAleese discusses need for reform on sealing criminal records"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Assistant Professor of Critical Criminology Samantha McAleese wrote a piece recently published in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/magazines\/september-2023\/cabinet-shuffle-reform-sealing-criminal-records\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Policy Options<\/a><\/em> about the need for a more effective and inclusive criminal record suspension process in Canada.<\/p>\n<p>She writes:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cMore than four million people in Canada have a criminal record and face\u00a0poorer social and economic outcomes\u00a0because of the ongoing stigma associated with past convictions. These people should not get lost in the wake of a significant\u00a0cabinet shuffle\u00a0that unfolded in July with the naming of Dominic LeBlanc as Canada\u2019s new minister of public safety, democratic institutions and intergovernmental affairs.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The current record suspension system (formerly known as pardons), which allows only some people to apply to have their conviction records sealed, is one of the important files that\u00a0LeBlanc\u00a0will oversee this fall.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em><em>He and the Trudeau government should follow through on a long-standing Liberal promise by\u00a0adopting an effective and inclusive system that would allow a fresh start for millions of Canadians.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The\u00a0record suspension\u00a0regime has been the subject of\u00a0much criticism\u00a0since\u00a0changes were made\u00a0to the\u00a0Criminal Records Act\u00a0in 2012. The application process is\u00a0expensive, punitive and burdensome. Yet, the federal government has responded slowly to\u00a0calls for change.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>There have been small wins and shifts. But we can hardly declare that meaningful change has occurred more than seven years after Ralph Goodale, then public safety minister,\u00a0vowed to overhaul\u00a0Canada\u2019s punitive program.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Continue reading the full article on the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/magazines\/september-2023\/cabinet-shuffle-reform-sealing-criminal-records\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Policy Options website<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Assistant Professor of Critical Criminology Samantha McAleese wrote a piece recently published in Policy Options about the need for a more effective and inclusive criminal record suspension process in Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64947,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,6,38],"tags":[522,8817,12906,33],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87694"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87718,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87694\/revisions\/87718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}