Judicial Response to the claims of Systemic Racism in the Canadian Criminal Justice

Abstract

Despite various socio-legal attempts to promote equity, the Canadian legal system continues to be critiqued for sustaining racism and implicitly preserving existing socio-economic inequalities. Racial profiling, over-policing, harsher arrest and bail conditions, and targeted sexual violence all evidence deeply problematic experiences of racialized individuals in Canadian society. In this presentation, I will report on my recent research analyzing how the Supreme Court of Canada has addressed systemic racism.  The themes discovered through the research findings will be analyzed using a critical lens to examine the influence of power relations and the social construct of race in legal proceedings and judicial decisions making.

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Tamara O’Doherty, School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University