We are living in revolutionary times. The ground is shifting beneath us every day. We are seeing a radical shift in our collective consciousness about ideas pertaining to abolition and defunding the police. We are beginning to awaken to the idea that we can solve issues of conflict, crisis, and harm in ways that do […] More »

For 15 years, a group of volunteers has been lugging tote bags of books from their library in the north end of Halifax to the women’s side of the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility, or Burnside Jail, in Dartmouth’s Burnside Industrial Park. The group is Books Beyond Bars, an anti-capitalist, non-hierarchical collective that runs a […] More »

The Ashley Smith inquest has encouraged Ottawa to make the first steps towards improving the lives of mentally ill female inmates at provincial health centres. Recently, Steven Blaney, minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, launched a pilot mental health plan. The idea is to begin sending intensely ill offenders to treatment centres. The Royal […] More »

The pace in which laws are being challenged, re-written, scrapped or introduced right now by the conservative government is truly astounding. The government’s use of the omnibus bill, where a number of pieces of related legislation are introduced as one big Bill, is the main way this is being done. But a lot of the […] More »

The camera rolled as a three-drug cocktail was shot into Andrew Grant DeYoung’s arm, there in a prison in Jackson, Georgia. It captured De Young as the injection reached his veins and killed him, thus carrying out his sentence, and granting him a spot in the history books as the first man in America in […] More »

Omar Khadr’s trial may be over, but his ordeal is not. Here are some of the crazier details about the affair, now that Khadr’s sentencing is complete: The facts remain unclear: The prosecution argued that since he was the only Al Qaeda fighter still alive at the end of the fight, it must have been […] More »

Last week we learned that the federal government spent $107,749.52 on Nikon DSLR D300s for the G20. For those of you who, like me five minutes ago, don’t know anything about photography let me tell you all you need to know about the D300s: it’s a really good camera. You can check out the reviews […] More »

1. Mental health, depression, and suicide are rampant We all know that prisons are too often warehouses for those amongst us suffering addictions or mental health problems. The actual numbers, however, are harrowing.  In federal penitentiaries 11% of prisoners have some sort of mental health diagnosis and 21.3% take prescription anti-psychotics on admission.  Almost 15% […] More »

Jonas Naimark took one of the most striking photos from Sunday, showing the demonstrators and bystanders hemmed in by riot police at the corner of Queen and Spadina. This is just a small portion of the image; click to see the remarkable full-size photo on Naimark’s website. One of the most notorious images from Saturday […] More »

Canadians like to feel good about our official policy of multiculturalism, and in general there’s plenty to feel good about. But as the introduction of the ominous new law SB 1070 in Arizona in April swept the news—a law that allows police in that state to demand proof of citizenship from people in public and […] More »

We may find out what retired General Rick Hillier knew about the alleged abuse of detainees after they were handed over to Afghan prisons by Canadian soldiers when he testifies before the parliamentary committee today. Hillier is a former NATO forces commander and was Canadian Chief of Defense Staff until last year. In his recently […] More »