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Police Practice and Research

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Canadian crime control in the new millennium: the influence of neoconservative US policies and practices
Walter S. DeKeseredy a a University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada

To cite this Article DeKeseredy, Walter S.'Canadian crime control in the new millennium: the influence of neo-

conservative US policies and practices', Police Practice and Research, 10: 4, 305 316 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/15614260802586301 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15614260802586301

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Police Practice and Research Vol. 10, No. 4, August 2009, 305316

RESEARCH ARTICLE Canadian crime control in the new millennium: the influence of neo-conservative US policies and practices
Walter S. DeKeseredy*
University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
Walter.dekeseredy@uoit.ca Walter S.DeKeseredy 0000002009 00 2009 & Francis Research Article 1561-4263 Francis Police and (print)/1477-271X 10.1080/15614260802586301 GPPR_A_358798.sgm Taylor Practice & Research (online)

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An important issue facing Canadians today is crime control and prevention. Research done in the late 1980s and early 1990s by three sociologists shows that Canadian federal criminal justice policies and practices adopted by the Mulroney government from 1984 to 1990 were inconsistent with US law and order models in place at that time. However, since the mid-1990s, Canadian federal and provincial governments have mimicked some US authoritarian and gender-blind means of curbing crime. The main objective of this paper is to provide some key examples of criminal justice policy transfer from the USA in Canada. At first glance, Canada may appear to be a kinder, gentler nation, but not to the extent assumed by many, if not most, outside observers. Keywords: Canada; neo-conservative; gender; violence; police; prisons

Introduction In Canada, frequent comparisons with the USA constitute a fact of life (Grabb & Curtis, 2005). As Jeffrey Simpson (2000, p. 95), author of the Star-Spangled Canadians, correctly points out:
Canadians prefer to think of their country as virtue incarnate, its cup of tolerance running over. They endlessly recycle the clich about Canada the peaceable kingdom in large part because it makes them feel good about themselves. Canadians are peacekeepers abroad, peaceful citizens at home.

Further, in response to attempts by businesses, political agencies, and other formal organizations to adopt various US policies and procedures, many Canadians passionately and publicly state, We dont want to be American (Hurtig, 1999; Marzolini, 2005). There are some past and current major political, legal, social, and economic differences between Canada and the USA. For example, Hatt, Caputo, and Perry (1990, 1994) found that criminal justice policies and practices adopted by the federal Progressive Conservative Party under the leadership of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney from 1984 to 1990 were inconsistent with authoritarian US law and order models in place at that time. More recently, in 2004, the Canadian government led by Liberal Party member Paul Martin introduced a bill calling for decriminalizing marijuana possession, much to the dismay and anger of President George W. Bush, a well-known advocate of the ongoing war on drugs (Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2004). Moreover, at the start of this new millennium, Canadian law enforcement officials were less likely to arrest and prosecute impaired drivers and sex trade workers than were their US counterparts (Gannon, 2001).
*Email: Walter.dekeseredy@uoit.ca
ISSN 1561-4263 print/ISSN 1477-271X online 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/15614260802586301 http://www.informaworld.com

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Since the mid-1990s, however, there has been a marginal difference between US and Canadian citizens concerns about controlling crime and maintaining law and order (Grabb & Curtis, 2005). Certainly, at first glance, Canada may appear to be a kinder, gentler nation, but not to the extent assumed by many, if not most, outside observers (DeKeseredy, Alvi, Schwartz, & Tomaszewski, 2003). The main objective of this paper, then, is to show that some Canadian crime control policies and laws now mirror authoritarian and genderblind approaches advanced by US neo-conservative politicians, researchers, activists, and practitioners. Facts dont matter: criminal justice policy transfer from the USA to Canada1 Since Canadas beginnings as a colony of France and then of England, its economy, culture, and criminal justice system have been heavily shaped by foreign influences (DeKeseredy & MacLean, 1993; Grabb, 2004). For example, the Canadian justice system shares a common legal heritage with England (Terrill, 2007, p. 203). Moreover, crime control laws and policies transferred from the USA heavily influence some of Canadas methods of governance, as they do in the UK (Jones & Newburn, 2002). Following Dolowitz and Marsh (1996, p. 344), policy transfer is defined here as a process in which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, and institutions, etc., in one time and/or place is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, and institutions in another time and place. How and why did Canada implement some authoritarian and gender-blind US crime policies? One possible answer to this question is derived from the work of Bennett (1991), Jones and Newburn (2002, p. 107), and Rose (1991) on emulation, which refers to a deliberate and conscious imitation of policy developments and programs in other countries. Broken windows or zero tolerance policing (Dennis, 1997) in the Province of Ontario is a prime example of such emulation and it is to this problem that I turn to first. Criminalizing physical and social disorder Criminalization is the governmental process of passing laws or creating policies that transform relatively minor deviant acts into criminal acts that is, acts punishable by the criminal justice system (Ellis & DeKeseredy, 1996). Of all the strategies imported from the USA to deal with incivilities, broken windows or zero tolerance policing is arguably the best known (Jones & Newburn, 2002). As Miller (2001, p. 2) puts it, If there were a Hall of Fame for influential public-policy ideas, then the broken windows thesis would probably have its own exhibit. Developed by Wilson and Kelling (1982), and then revised by Kelling and Coles (1997), this perspective asserts that neighborhood physical and social disorder2 leads to more serious crime because these problems give prospective offenders the impression that no one cares about what is going on in their community. In the words of Kelling, Just as a broken window left unattended is a sign that nobody cares and leads to more damage and vandalism, so disorderly behavior left unattended is a sign that nobody cares and leads to more serious crime (cited in Nifong, 1999, p. 8). According to critical criminologist Jock Young (1999, p. 124),3 the broken windows perspective has five main elements:

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a lowering of tolerance for crime and deviance; the use of punitive, somewhat drastic measures to achieve this; a return to perceived past levels of respectability, order, and civility;

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the awareness of the continuum between incivilities and crime with both low spectrum quality of life rule breaking and serious crimes being considered problems; and the belief that there is a relationship between crime and incivilities in that incivility unchecked, by various routes, gives rise to crime.

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Former New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton claims this style of policing is highly effective and working hand-in-hand with George Kelling (Nifong, 1999), he put it into practice in 1993. The outcome was that tens of thousands of people were arrested for minor offenses (Skogan, 2006). To support this tactic, Bratton pointed to statistics showing that the New York City homicide rate markedly declined in the period 199396. In fact, it decreased by 49.5% during that time, which was the lowest since 1968 (Young, 1999). Further, the rate of gunshot victims treated by the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation decreased by 56.3% during the same time (Jacobson, 1997). Near the start of this century, Ontario Progressive Conservative Premier Mike Harris was impressed by these figures (DeKeseredy et al., 2003), which fit nicely with his governments rationale for implementing a Zero Tolerance Directive to all Ontario police agencies (Ontario Government, 2001, p. 2). Consider this excerpt from Mike Harris Plan to Keep Ontario on the Right Track (2001, p. 2):
Whether you live in the city or are just visiting, you have the right to walk down the street or go to public places without being harassed or intimidated by aggressive panhandlers. Well stop aggressive panhandling by making threatening and harassing behavior, such as blocking people on sidewalks, a provincial offence. Well also give police the power to crack down on squeegee kids.

Harris and his colleagues were (and still are) so impressed by the broken windows thesis that they invited George Kelling and William Bratton to Toronto to speak at a February 1998 conference on this perspective.4 Further, the Ontario Crime Commission, appointed by Harris in April 1997, went to New York City in 1997 to research the citys dramatic success reducing crime rates (Ontario Crime Commission, 2001), and the Commission created a website dedicated to promoting the virtues of the broken windows approach (see http://www.fightcrime.net/windows.htm). Below are some statements that were included on this site, which now sells martial arts and crime fighting equipment (Ontario Crime Commission, 2001, pp. 12):
The fear and anxiety caused by street disorder is reflected in a number of studies and polls. Although the statistics tell us that the overall crime rate dropped slightly in 1996, a July 1997 Angus Reid Poll shows that 60% of Canadians believe that crime is getting worse. In the last 30 years, property crime has tripled violent crime quadrupled. I believe there is clearly a link between disorderly behavior and crime. Not just the perception of fear of crime, but crime itself. (David Griffin, Police Association of Canada) The New York Experience. WE WILL FIGHT FOR EVERY STREET, EVERY BLOCK, EVERY HOUSE, AND WE WILL WIN. (William Bratton, former New York City Police Commissioner (emphasis in original)) The facts speak for themselves. If you start by enforcing the laws against street crime soon youll have an impact on all crime. (Toronto Sun Editorial, May 1997)

Did the facts speak for themselves in Ontario? Many, if not most, criminologists recognize that facts or data do not speak for themselves. Rather, they must be interpreted (Curran & Renzetti, 2001). For example, the Ontario homicide rate markedly decreased in

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the period 199799. Still, this was not really a function of getting tough on minor, qualityof-life offences (Ontario Crime Commission, 2001, p. 1). The homicide rate decreased in every other Canadian province except Alberta and Prince Edward Island during this time,5 and only a few other parts of Canada (e.g., Winnipeg and Victoria) had zero tolerance police practices. Likewise, in the USA, during the period 199396, the crime rate dropped in cities that did not adopt aggressive police practices (e.g., San Diego), in jurisdictions that reduced the number of police officers, and in cities where there had been no change in policing (Currie, 1997; DeKeseredy et al., 2003; Pollard, 1997; Young, 1999). Moreover, crime decreased in industrialized cities around the world long before New York City and other places implemented zero tolerance policing (Miller, 2001; Young, 1999). In fact, non-gun homicides were decreasing steadily since 1985 and gun-related homicides began to decrease in 1991 (Fagan, Zimring, & Kim, 1998). Of course, it is exceptionally difficult to parcel out what reduces crime rates when so many things are happening simultaneously, including increased prison rates, a then strong economy with many more jobs available, the decline of the popularity of crack that meant fewer armed drug dealers, police crackdowns, on gun possession, the decrease of young males in the crime prone years, and so on (Blumstein & Wallman, 2000; Miller, 2001). Nevertheless, there is no empirical support for the assertion that disorder left unchecked directly causes crime (DeKeseredy et al., 2003; Miller, 2001; Sampson & Raudenbush, 2001). It should also be noted that James Q. Wilson, co-founder of the broken windows thesis, stated at the 2000 annual meetings of the American Political Science Association that, Its only a theory. In 2002, he told The New York Times, God knows that the truth is (cited in Miller, 2001, p. 7). Even George Kelling admits that the broken windows theory has not been supported using state-of-the-art quantitative methods:
Broken windows remains a hypothesis which has a lot of support in the form of anecdotes and case studies. My evidence for this continues to be the constant, repeated contact I have with citizens and communities. I dont care where you go, citizens believe theres this link that every time you start to restore order, crime goes down. (cited in Miller, 2001, p. 7)

Imprisonment Former Ontario Premier Mike Harris and his successor Ernie Eves contributed to the disorder, which they alleged directly causes crime. While they and their fellow Progressive Conservative Members of Provincial Parliament denounced crime and promised safer streets and communities, their massive cuts to healthcare, welfare, and employment insurance tossed many mentally ill people, homeless families and individuals, and unemployed youths into the streets, where they and many of their behaviors scared local residents (DeKeseredy et al., 2003; National Council of Welfare, 2000). These cuts constitute another example of Learning from Uncle Sam (Jones & Newburn, 2002, p. 97) about how to deal with what Marxist scholar Stephen Spitzer (2008, p. 72) refers to as social junk or people who fail to, are unable to, or who refuse to participate in the roles supportive of capitalist society. For example, when broken windows policing was being considered in Ontario, many US citizens were experiencing the meta-humiliation of poverty spawned (Young, 2007), in large part, by drastic declines in state support for Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) programs, Contract with America initiatives, and other state, local, and federal government cutbacks (Wilson, 1996). Simultaneously, the USA was (and still is) experiencing an imprisonment binge (Irwin, 2005), with more than 2 million people behind bars (JFA Institute, 2007). US citizens are now imprisoned 4 times more often than

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in the early 1970s (Foster & Hagan, 2007; Western, Pattillo, & Weiman, 2004), and this mass incarceration or new penalism is racialized (Chesney-Lind, 2007). About one out of every three African-American men between the ages of 20 and 29 are under some type of correctional supervision and Latinos stand a 17% chance of being incarcerated (Mauer, 2005). If the USA has shifted from a welfare state to a penal state (Waquant, 2001), the same can be said about Canada. For example, staunch law and order advocate and Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament Stephen Harper was elected Prime Minister in 2006. Not coincidently, Canadas incarceration rate increased for the first time in more than a decade in 2005/2006. An average of 33,123 adults and 1987 youths were then in custody, which was 3% more than in 2004/2005 (Statistics Canada, 2007). Moreover, if imprisonment is racialized in the USA, the same can be said about Canada. While men of color constitute only 0.02% of Canadas population and 0.03% of Ontarios population, they account for more than 5% of the federal institution population and 11% of Ontarios institution population (Griffiths, 2007). Aboriginal people are also overrepresented in Canadian penal institutions. Aboriginals account for only 2% of the adult Canadian population, but they represent 14% of federal inmates and 18% of their provincial/territorial counterparts (Terrill, 2007). Chesney-Linds commentary (2007, p. 212) on the shift from welfare state to penal state in the USA is, thus, also relevant to Canada: Along with this shift, of course, comes public attitudes about crime issue and criminals that reinforce prison as a viable solution to the many social problems associated with this nations long struggle with racial justice and income inequality. Note that although the Canadian homicide rate dropped by 10% in 2006 compared to 2005 (Li, 2007), one of the Harper governments new slogans is Serious Crime = Serious Time and it proposed the omnibus Tackling Violent Crime Act in fall 2007, parts of which mimic failed U.S. methods (Travers, 2007), such as the three-strikes, youre out sentencing law.6 Twenty-six US states and the US federal government now have three-strikes laws (Jones & Newburn, 2002), and the Canadian federal governments call for similar legislation occurred at roughly the same time Toronto was designated as Canadas poverty capital (Monsebraaten & Daly, 2007). There, close to 30% of families (about 93,000 households raising children) live in poverty, which is a 16% increase since 1990 (United Way of Greater Toronto, 2007). It is likely that a sizeable portion of Torontos poor will soon end up in jail or prison in response to their use of drugs to cope with the daily life-events stress spawned by being socially and economically excluded (DeKeseredy et al., 2003; Young, 1999). Trivializing violence against women In 1994, the US Congress passed what the late Senator Paul Wellstone and his wife Sheila (2001, p. ix) called the most comprehensive anti-violence legislation to date: the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Congress reauthorized VAWA in 2000, and again in October 2005. VAWA created new penalties for gender-related violence and new grant programs to motivate states to address physical violence against women and sexual assault, including:

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law enforcement and prosecution grants (STOP grants); grants to encourage arrest; rural domestic violence and child abuse enforcement grants;

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the National Domestic Violence Hotline; and grants to battered womens shelters (Family Violence Prevention Fund, 2007, p. 1).

Ironically, at a time when crime discussion in the USA is dominated by calls for more prisons, more executions, and what about the victim?, a market remains for belittling crime victims when they are women (DeKeseredy, 2009; Schwartz & DeKeseredy, 1994). For example, growing numbers of conservative fathers rights groups, academics, politicians, and others intent on rolling back the achievements of the womens movement fervently challenge research showing alarmingly high rates of male-to-female beatings, sexual assaults, and other highly injurious patriarchal practices that typically occur behind closed doors and in intimate relationships (DeKeseredy & Dragiewicz, 2007; Stanko, 2006). One way they do this is by arguing that women are as violent as men. This factoid never seems to go away and presents one of the greatest obstacles to progressive efforts to enhance womens health and safety regardless of the research published in scientific journals or how many times it is refuted in the mass media and elsewhere (DeKeseredy, 2007a). To support the claim that women are equally or more violent than men, anti-feminist journalists, politicians, and others either produce or cite statistics gleaned from some version of the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) (Dutton & Nicholls, 2005). Developed in the 1970s by University of New Hampshire sociologist Murray Straus (1979), the original or a modified rendition of this measure is often used to solicit information from both men and women about ways of handling interpersonal conflict in their relationships with intimate partners. Repeatedly, it is said that the facts speak for themselves, but facts must be interpreted and often are in highly problematic ways. For example, versions of the CTS tell us little, if anything at all, about the contexts, meanings, and motives of violence (DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 1998; Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, & Daly, 1992; Miller, 2005). In other words, there is no way of knowing based on crude counts of behaviors why women or men used violence against their intimate partners. Still, this does not mean that researchers should abandon the CTS because it can be modified to glean data about contexts, meanings, and motives of violence. For example, DeKeseredy and Kelly (1993) added Saunders measures (1986) of these three factors to the CTS they used to capture data on the prevalence of violence in Canadian university and college dating. In analyzing the statistics generated by Saunders questions, DeKeseredy, Saunders, Schwartz, and Alvi (1997) found that a substantial number of women in DeKeseredy and Kellys sample (1993) reported that their violence was in self-defense or fighting back, and these findings are consistent with those uncovered by other studies (Gondolf, 1998; Saunders, 1986; Swan & Snow, 2003). Intimate partner violence takes many shapes and forms and sexual assault is another major variant of this harm. However, people who claim that women are as violent as men typically ignore it (DeKeseredy, 2006; DeKeseredy & Dragiewicz, 2007; Kimmel, 2002; Saunders, 2002), which is a serious problem for several reasons. First, deleting this type of victimization from research and debates assumes that it is less serious than other forms of violence. Second, a large empirical literature shows that many acts of violence in marriage/ cohabitation, dating, and during or after separation or divorce are sexual assaults, and they are not sexually symmetrical in nature. In fact, men commit the vast majority of them (DeKeseredy, 2006; Saunders, 2002). Another key point is that many women use violence to defend themselves against sexual assaults (Sever, 2002). For example, the Canadian National Survey of Woman Abuse in University/College Dating found that women using self-defensive violence experienced much higher rates of sexual abuse than other women in the survey (DeKeseredy et al.,

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1997). Similarly, a growing body of US research shows that many women are sexually assaulted during and after separation or divorce and some of these survivors must resort to violence to protect themselves from men who could or want to kill them (Bergen, 1996; DeKeseredy, Schwartz, Fagen, & Hall, 2006; Sever, 2002). Factoids are used in positive and negative ways (DeKeseredy, 2007a). The factoid concerning womens use of violence is used to help weaken VAWA and efforts to support it. For example, the Bush administrations budget for the Fiscal Year 2007 proposed funding for shelters and direct services to abused women that was $195 million below the authorized level, and the President did not request any money for Native American and Alaskan programs (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 2007). The federal government also refused to include protections for battered women in the marriage protection programs that are part of the administrations welfare proposal for the Fiscal Year 2005 (National Organization of Women, 2004). Further, the latest version of VAWA, due in large part to the efforts of conservative mens groups, views women and men as victims of violence and sexual assault and allows for the provision of services to men. Another event warranting attention here is that when he was part of the Bush Administration, former Attorney General John Ashcroft appointed former Independent Womens Forum (IWF) President Nancy Ptotenhauer to the Federal Advisory Council on Violence Against Women, which advises the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services in implementing the Violence Against Women Act. It may seem painfully obvious, but worth stating again: the IWF is an anti-feminist womens organization. As noted by Hammer (2002, p. 28), it was formed in 1992 by Republican women angered by the testimony of Anita Hill at confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and the prominent role played by the National Organization of Women and other feminist groups. At the IWF, Ptotenhauer frequently and publicly testified against VAWA, saying, The Violence Against Women Act will do nothing to protect women from crime. It will, though, perpetuate false information, waste money, and urge vulnerable women to mistrust all men (IWF, 2002, p. 1). Recently, the Canadian Harper government took somewhat similar political actions. For example, federal government agency Statistics Canada no longer conducts surveys that focus primarily on violence against women and instead produces sexually symmetrical findings generated by the CTS (e.g., equal rates of male and female violence). In fact, Statistics Canada is currently being influenced by political forces guided by fathers rights groups and others intent on minimizing the pain and suffering caused by male-to-female abuse (DeKeseredy & Dragiewicz, 2007; DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 2003).7 Moreover, on 3 October 2006, Bev Oda, former federal Minister for the Status of Women Canada (SWC) announced that womens organizations would no longer be eligible for funding for advocacy, government lobbying, or research projects. Furthermore, SWC was required to delete the word equality for its list of goals (Carastathis, 2006). In early September 2007, the Harper government added more fuel to an ongoing fire by eliminating funding to the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL), which is a non-profit womens group that struggles to help end violence against women and other forms of female victimization. Thus, some researchers assert that Canadians are going to see more cases where many women are twice victimized (DeKeseredy, 2009): first by violence and the men who abused them and then by the lack of social support provided by the federal government (Elias, 1993). Shortly after the announcement about cuts to NAWL, the office of federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty sent a flyer to his Whitby, Ontario constituents homes that included this statement: Canadas New Government is standing up for safe communities

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by tackling violent crime and keeping criminals off the streets. The flyer also announced, Serious Crime = Serious Time. Given that most violence against women occurs behind closed doors and not on the streets, many researchers, practitioners, and policy analysts assert that Mr Flahertys government does not view date or acquaintance rape, woman battering, etc. as serious crimes, which may also explain why the NAWL lost its annual funding of $300,000 (DeKeseredy, 2009). The Canadian governments responses to feminist concerns are much more than just a coincidence and likely are heavily related to the ideological similarities of the Bush and Harper administrations and to elite networking, which also contributed to zero tolerance policing in Ontario (Jones & Newburn, 2002, pp. 9798). Conclusion The small amount of data presented here reveal some types of crime control policy transfer between the USA and Canada, as there is between the USA and the UK (Jones & Newburn, 2002). Of course, there are other major examples. For instance, since the 1990s, lawmakers in the USA and Canada (as well as in other advanced industrial nations) have passed draconian laws aimed at regulating youth deviance, and zero tolerance policies are now common approaches to dealing with minor transgressions and incivilities in schools across North America (Currie, 2004; DeKeseredy, 2007b). Still, in this current political economic climate, is it correct to assume that more progressive leaders would create more liberal policies and laws and terminate neo-conservative ones? This empirical question can only be answered empirically. Nevertheless, there is evidence strongly suggesting that it is erroneous to presume that progressive policies would be implemented if a Democrat is elected US President or if a Liberal or New Democratic Party member is elected Canadian Prime Minister. In the USA, we are already witnessing many Democrats, such as Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, adopting an approach Elliott Currie (1992, p. 93) defined 14 years ago as progressive retreatism. This involves embracing parts of conservative policies to win elections. This is not a new Democrat strategy. For example, when Bill Clinton ran for President in 1992, No Republican was going to out-tough him on crime (Chesney-Lind, 2007, p. 212). Recall that he interrupted his New Hampshire campaign to preside over the execution of Rickey Ray Rector in Arkansas (Sherrill, 2001). It appears, too, that as of fall 2007, Stephan Dion, Canadian Liberal Leader of the Official Opposition, also did not want to be out-toughed on crime. At the time of writing this paper, Stephen Harper led a minority government, which could have easily fallen had Dion called for a parliamentary non-confidence vote on the Tackling Violent Crime Act. However, he lacked confidence about going into a fall 2007 election and did not want to trigger one by defeating the populist law-and-order agenda of the Conservatives (Hebert, 2007, p. A17). International links in criminal justice policy formation have not received much empirical attention (Jones & Newburn, 2002), especially by Canadian scholars. Thus, a key objective of this paper was to build upon Hatt et al.s research (1990, 1994) on the influence of neo-conservatism on Canadian crime control policy. However, I argue that the Canadian state of affairs is distinct from when they did their empirical work and that Canada is rapidly becoming a law and order society. Still, more research is obviously necessary to determine whether Canada and the USA are truly no longer regions apart when it comes to the development of criminal law and crime control policy (Grabb & Curtis, 2005).

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Acknowledgement
I would like to thank John Crank, Colleen Kadleck, and Barbara Perry for their advice and guidance.

Notes
1. The first part of this title is the subtitle of James Travers critique (2007) of the Canadian federal 2. 3.
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4. 5. 6.

7.

Progressive Conservative Partys crime control policies under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Following Skogan (1990), social disorder is defined here as behavior such as prostitution, vandalism, etc. Physical disorder involves visual signs of negligence and decay, such as abandoned buildings, rat-infested garbage on the streets, broken streetlights, and so on (p. 4). Although the term critical criminology has been around since the early 1970s, there is no widely accepted definition (DeKeseredy & Perry, 2006). For the purpose of this paper, however, critical criminology is defined as a perspective that views the major sources of crime as the class, ethnic, and patriarchal relations that control our society. Further, it is a perspective that rejects as solutions to crime short-term measures such as tougher laws, increased incarceration, counseling therapy, and the like. Rather, it regards major structural and cultural changes within society as essential steps to reduce criminality and to promote social justice (DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 1996; Young, 1988). Sponsored by the Ontario Crime Commission, the title of this conference was Crime Control: International Strategies for Success. The homicide rate increased in the Northwest Territories when it included Nunavut. The proposed Tackling Violent Crime Act calls for revisions to the Canadian Criminal Code, such as: automatically refusing bail to people charged with gun crimes; making it easier for police to charge people driving under the influence of drugs; raising the legal age of sexual consent to 16 from 14; making it easier to prosecute and indefinitely incarcerate dangerous offenders after three convictions for serious crimes; and mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug dealers (MacCharles, 2007, p. A17). Statistics Canadas 1993 national Violence Against Women Survey was heavily influenced by feminist scholarship. See Johnson (1996) for more information on this study and the data gleaned by it.

Note on contributor
Walter S. DeKeseredy is Professor in the Faculty of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. He has published 13 books, 70 journal articles, and dozens of book chapters on woman abuse, criminological theory, and inner-city crime. He is the 2008 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Criminologys Division on Critical Criminology.

References
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