Csi Alberta

Ten gripping tales of murder and missing persons show how skulls and skeletons reveal their secrets to forensic investigators. A skull is found on a scree slope high above the mirror-calm waters of Spray Lakes. Bones rumoured for years to be buried in a Medicine Hat backyard are finally dug up. The trussed and tortured skeletal remains of an unknown man are found in a septic tank near Tofield. These baffling Alberta cases show how dogged, old-fashioned detective work combines with modern forensic techniques in the search for the truth.

In July 1924, Scottish nursemaid Janet Smith was murdered in Vancouver’s wealthy Shaughnessy Heights. Her killer was never apprehended, but the investigation had shocking consequences. Twenty years later, Molly Justice was stabbed to death in a Saanich park. Her murderer has never been charged, even though police were virtually certain of his identity for over 50 years. Susan McNicoll’s dramatic accounts of six of British Columbia’s most intriguing murders span a century of crime, from a 1904 Victoria Chinatown murder to a modern cold case from Vernon solved through DNA analysis of an unusual kind.

These eight true tales explore the dark side of 20th-century prairie history. A Saskatchewan farmhouse is burned to the ground to conceal the brutal murders of a family of seven. A German prisoner-of-war camp in Medicine Hat is the scene of savage Nazi killings. A convicted killer is given a day pass out of prison for his birthday, only to escape and kill again. From a deadly Prohibition-era shootout to a landmark case solved with DNA evidence, these are riveting stories of murderers and the people who fought to bring them to justice.

Uniting forensics, law, and social science in meaningful and relevant ways, Forensic Science and the Administration of Justice, by Kevin J. Strom and Matthew J. Hickman, is structured around current research on how forensic evidence is being used and how it is impacting the justice system. This unique book—written by nationally known scholars in the field—includes five sections that explore the demand for forensic services, the quality of forensic services, the utility of forensic services, post-conviction forensic issues, and the future role of forensic science in the administration of justice. The authors offer policy-relevant directions for both the criminal justice and forensic fields and demonstrate how the role of the crime laboratory in the American justice system is evolving in concert with technological advances as well as changing demands and competing pressures for laboratory resources.

They looked impressive in their red tunics, but the members of the fledgling North West Mounted Police had little experience as they departed from Fort Garry in 1874 on a mission to bring order to the lawless territories west of the Red River. There they found a vast and rugged land ruled by whiskey traders, outlaws, and First Nations determined to defend their way of life from encroaching settlers. From remote barracks in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, the new recruits quickly rose to the job of dispatching justice to criminals such as the Plains Cree trapper Swift Runner, hanged for murder and cannibalism, and the notorious Regina crime duo of Gaddy and Raclette. They put their lives on the line and sometimes paid the ultimate price for it, as revealed in the story of Constable Graburn, shot in the back at Cypress Hills by an unknown killer, and of Manitoba’s beloved first police chief, Richard Power, who drowned while pursuing the fugitive Mike Carroll. In other stories, the frontier town of Calgary is the site of the first hanging of a white man in western Canada, while further east, a quick-witted Métis from St. Boniface earns the title of Manitoba’s first indigenous outlaw. These are amazing stories indeed of a formative time in Canada’s history and the steadfast constabulary who helped bring order to a lawless land.

An indexing, abstracting and document delivery service that covers current Canadian report literature of reference value from government and institutional sources.

Rural crime has long been overlooked in the field of crime prevention. Sustained academic interrogation is necessary, therefore, to reduce the extensive economic and social costs of rural crime as well as to challenge some of the myths regarding the prevention of rural crime. Rural Crime Prevention: Theory, Tactics and Techniques critically analyses, challenges, considers and assesses a suite of crime prevention initiatives across an array of international contexts. This book recognises the diversity and distinct features of rural places and the ways that these elements impact on rates, experiences and responses. Crucially, Rural Crime Prevention also incorporates non-academic voices which are embedded throughout the book, linking theory and scholarship with practice. Proactive responses to rural offending based on sound evidence can serve to facilitate feelings of safety and security throughout communities, enhance individual wellbeing and alleviate pressure on the overburdened and typically under-resourced formal elements of the criminal justice system. This book provides an opportunity to focus on the prevention of crime in regional, rural and remote parts of the globe. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, policing, sociology and practitioners interested in learning about the best-practice international approaches to rural crime prevention in the twenty-first century.