Thinking About Justice

A Book of Readings

Edited by Kelly Gorkoff, Richard Jochelson

How do we think about justice? Is it an act? An ideology? A philosophy? We are divided in our understandings of justice between those who seek fundamental social change versus those who seek incremental change and between those who argue that justice exists versus those who think it is a ruse — between internal and external perspectives. However, a promising axis of scholarship aimed at bridging these divides is emerging. Thinking about Justice introduces readers to these three ways of thinking about justice in a variety of contexts including prisons, policing, the courts, youth crime, Aboriginal people, the media, poverty and work in the sex industry. Ultimately, Thinking about Justice seeks to embrace the potentialities of justice, to explore the avenues through which justice seekers interact, debate and achieve some mode of cohesion and find a new, inclusive way forward.

Contents

Introduction: Thinking about Justice (Kelly Gorkoff & Richard Jochelson) • Part I: Internal Approaches to Justice • Measur- ing Success of Corrections Programs: The Evaluation of the Minobimasdiziwin Prison Gang Intervention Program (Michael Weinrath, Melanie Murchison & Trevor Markesteyn) • Extra-Legal Police Powers in Canada: The Rule of Law and the Enigma of Retroactive Decision Making (Glen Luther) • Punks, Firebugs and the Laughing Girl: Youth Crime Coverage in the Winnipeg Sun (Shannon Sampert & Robert Froese) • Part II: External Approaches to Justice • Legitimate Concerns: Aboriginal Rights and the Limits of Canadian Justice (Jeremy Patzer) • Foucault’s Struggle for Justice: Bourgeois versus Popular Conceptions (Ronjon Paul Datta) • Disciplining Capital: Corporate Crime and the Neoliberal State (Steven Bittle) • Infanticide: The Will to Punish through Equality and Reproductive Responsibility (Kirsten Kramar) • Part III: Bridging the Divide • R. v. Latimer and Empowering People with Disabilities (Ravi Malhotra) • Justice and Victimization in the Inner City: Notes from Central Winnipeg (Steven Kohm) • Sex Work and the Law: A Critical Analysis of Four Policy Approaches to Adult Prostitution (Frances M. Shaver) • Scarecrows and Canaries: Justice and the Youthful Other (Bryan Hogeveen & Joshua Freistadt)

About the Authors

Kelly Gorkoff is a faculty member in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Winnipeg and a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. She is the author of Being Heard: The Experiences of Young Women in Prostitution (2003).

Richard Jochelson is a faculty member in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Winnipeg and holds his PhD in law from Osgoode Hall. He has published articles dealing with obscenity, indecency, judicial activism and police powers. He is a member of the Bar of Manitoba and co-authored Sex and the Supreme Court: Obscenity and Indecency Law in Canada with Kirsten Kramar (2010).