Monday, October 28. 2013

Today's schedule is A-AG-B-C-D 

A Block Law 9/10 - Today we have a guest speaker, Mr. Ken Lees. Mr Lees used to teach at Vanier, but now works with SD71 Aboriginal Education Services. He's going to talk with us about Aboriginal principles of justice and how they are being adapted into the Canadian legal system. From the Justice Education Society:

If you have been charged with a crime and are an Aboriginal person, there are special cultural considerations that the court must take into account in assessing your case.  This applies to all Aboriginal peoples of Canada, including status and non-status Indian, Inuit, and Métis and whether living on or off reserve. What this means is that, as an Aboriginal offender, a restorative justice process may be more appropriate for you.  Such processes focus on healing those affected by the criminal act, including the offender, and so are more in line with traditional Aboriginal justice.  Also, a restorative justice approach will often allow for a solution with no jail time, which helps reduce the drastic over-representation of Aboriginals in Canadian jails.

B Block Social Studies 10 - Today you have your Rebellions Unit Final. The unit final will take about 45 minutes of the class and if you reviewed your work, I'm sure that you will do well. When we're done we will begin looking at the six factors that led to Confederation in 1867.

C Block Criminology 12 - Today you'll be in the library to do two things: 1. finish any missing blog entries that you have yet to complete for assessment; and 2. begin work on your seminar assignment for next week. A Reminder that the blog topics are:
Blog # 6 The Good Burglar
Blog # 5 Auto Theft
Blog # 4 Sexual Assault & Hypermasculinity
Blog # 3 Serial and Mass Murder (Olson and Lepine)
Blog # 2 Short & Long term Impacts of Crime Victims
Blog # 1 Crime Trends and Rates

If you're finished all of your blog entries then you can begin to research your seminar topic. Instead of an essay or a survey of criminological theory worksheet I thought I'd give you the opportunity to spend some time looking at something that really interests you in Criminology. So basically I'd like to have a seminar next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday where you have between five to ten minutes to present information on a criminology topic to the class. You can look at a specific crime, a specific criminal, a specific criminological theory, a criminal justice & enforcement technique that reduces crime, or any other criminological topic but it really should be of interest to you. So if you're really interested in gangs you can choose that (what they do, how they do it, where they operate). If you're really interested in a specific gang you can choose that (the Hells Angels or the Bandidos). If you're really interested in how police infiltrate gangs you can choose that. What should this look like? You'll have five to eight minutes and you can use either your blog or powerpoint or some web based resource for graphic information. Tell the class what you found out about your topic and why it interests you.

D Block Law 12 - Today we are back in the library for our last day to work on our Canadian Criminal Defense project. Don't forget that you need to find three recent (in the last two years) criminal cases where a defense we discussed this past week was used. The defenses are: Alibi, Non-Insane Automatism, Intoxication, Insane Automatism, Battered Woman Syndrome, Self-defense, Necessity, Duress, Ignorance of the law, Mistake of fact, Entrapment, Double jeopardy, and Provocation. Places to find cases - CanLII is a non-profit organization managed by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. CanLII's goal is to make Canadian law accessible for free on the Internet. Click through the databases on the side (provinces and territories) and search by year (2012-2011-2010)...anytime you see Supreme/Superior court or court of Queen's Bench you'll find serious criminal casesd (remember look for R. v. in the case citation). Canoe is is a leading Canadian internet portal offering news, sports and entertainment from Sun Media. Crime news stories can be found in the Crime portion of the News section.