Crime In Canadian Society

What do Canadian films say about crime and justice in Canada? What purpose to Canadian crime films serve politically and culturally? Screening Justice is a scholarly exploration of films that focus on crime and justice in Canada. Crime films are pivotal for understanding and shaping Canadian sensibilities by setting out widely available templates for thinking about crime and justice in Canadian society. Spanning disciplines and examining films from across Canada, Screening Justice is the first comprehensive Canadian volume on crime films that takes up cultural criminology’s call for more critical scholarly analyses of the interplay between crime, culture and society.

The study of social control has long been of academic interest. Groupliving requires the establishment of social and legal norms to governbehaviour, and societies seek to prevent violations of these norms byimposing penalties on those who break the rules. One form of legalviolation is categorized as 'crime,' and the perpetrators as'criminals.' Many criminologists study these rule-breakers tofind out why they step outside the mores and laws of their society.

This fifth volume in the distinguished series on the history of Canadian law turns to the important issues of crime and criminal justice. In examining crime and criminal law specifically, the volume contributes to the long-standing concern of Canadian historians with law, order, and authority. The volume covers criminal justice history at various times in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes. It is a study which opens up greater vistas of understanding to all those interested in the interstices of law, crime, and punishment.