Originally published thirty years ago, Critique of the Legal Order remains highly relevant for the twenty-first century. Here Richard Quinney provides a critical look at the legal order in capitalist society. Using a traditional Marxist perspective, he argues that the legal order is not intended to reduce crime and suffering, but to maintain class differences and a social order that mainly benefits the ruling class.

Quinney challenges modern criminologists to examine their own positions. As -ancillary agents of power, - criminologists provide information that governing...

The sacred sites of indigenous peoples are under increasing threat worldwide. The threat's origin is traceable to state appropriation of control over their ancestral territories; its increase is fueled by insatiable demands on lands, waters, and natural resources. Because their sacred sites spiritually anchor their relationship with their lands, and because their relationship with their lands is at the core of their identities, threats to their sacred sites are effectively threats to indigenous peoples themselves.

In recent decades, First Nations peoples of Canada, like other...

Laws and Societies in the Canadian Prairie West, 1670-1940 examines the legal history of the north-west frontier, from the earliest years of European-Native contact in the seventeenth century to the mid-1900s. Challenging myths about a peaceful west and prairie exceptionalism, the book explores the substance of prairie legal history and the degree to which the region's mentality is rooted in the historical experience of distinctive prairie peoples.

The chapters, written by a cross-section of established and emerging scholars working in the allied fields of law, legal history,...

People with disabilities in Canada experience and inhabit a system of deep structural, economic, social, political, legal, and cultural inequality ? a regime of dis-citizenship. Despite the widespread belief that Canada is a country of liberty, equality, and inclusion, many persons with disabilities experience social exclusion and marginalization. They are socially constructed as second-class citizens.

Critical Disability Theory inquires into the possibilities and parameters of a critical theory of disability. Its essays argue that accommodating equality for the disabled is...

Since the introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, the question of judicial power and its relationship to parliamentary democracy has been an important one in Canadian politics. Some critics, suspicious of what they perceive as the "activism" of "unelected and unaccountable" judges, view the increased power of the Supreme Court as a direct challenge to parliament. But has parliamentary democracy been weakened by judicial responses to the Charter?

In Governing with the Charter, James Kelly clearly demonstrates that our current democratic deficit is...

Bar Codes documents twelve years in the lives of a group of Ontario women lawyers. Shakespeare's Portia provides an overarching metaphor, reminding readers of women's attempts to enter into an unfamiliar culture. Sometimes the simple act of robing can enhance a woman lawyer's identity and grant her legitimacy. Like Portia, she is transformed from ?unlessoned girl? to wise counsel. However, women also face a countervailing image, that of the powerful professional gentleman symbolizing excellence.

Women encounter the norms of the legal culture when they enter law school and...

The domestic processing of human rights complaints attracts a great deal of public attention and interest. Yet despite this scrutiny, there is still much below the surface that we don't know. When people contact the human rights commission or a human rights lawyer, how do they think about and use human rights discourse? How do the legal professionals involved characterize the experiences they describe? How are complaints turned into cases? Can administrative systems be both effective and fair?

Defining Rights and Wrongs investigates the day-to-day practices of low-level...

This book presents the work of a new generation of critical criminologists who explore the geographical, institutional, and political contexts of the discipline in Canada. Breaking away from mainstream criminology and law-and-order discourses, the authors offer a spectrum of theoretical approaches to criminal justice - from governmentality to feminist criminology, from critical realism to anarchism - and they propose novel approaches to topics ranging from genocide to white-collar crime. By posing crucial questions and attempting to define what criminology should be, this book will shape...

Since 9/11 and the onset of the ?war on terror, ? the principal challenge confronting liberal democracies has been to balance freedom with security and individual with collective rights. This book sheds new light on the evolution of human rights norms in liberal democracies by charting the activism of four Canadian NGOs on issues of refugee rights, hate speech, and the death penalty, including their use of difficult, often controversial legal cases as platforms to assert human rights principles and shape judicial policy-making. The struggles of these NGOs reveal not only the fragility but...