Tuesday, February 7. 2017

Today's schedule is C-D-A-B

C Block Social Studies 11 - OK so yesterday we had fun taking a look at the legislative branch of the federal government system. Remember the job of the legislative branch is to legislate - to create or repeal/change laws in Canada. To demonstrate your fabulous new knowledge you will have to draft a simplified bill that you would like to see made law, where you'll write the idea in a simple sentence or two and then use the Make It Law handout to organize your ideas (you got it yesterday in class). After this, you'll create a comic strip demonstrating the process of how a Bill becomes a Law in Canada using the legislative process steps I'll outline with you in class. If you need help look in your Counterpoints textbook and the Parliament of Canada "Follow That Bill" website. You'll have more time tomorrow to work on this assignment and it will be due on Monday next week.

D Block Criminology 12 - Today we'll look at the difference between deviance and criminal behaviour (acts that are criminal but not deviant and deviant but not criminal). What is deviant behaviour? A simple explanation of deviant behaviour could be any action that violates cultural norms (formal norms like laws - or informal norms like nose picking). This is a difficult concept because what an individual or sub culture in society defines as deviant is contextually situated (meaning what I think is deviant may be different for you; it is subjective - influenced by personal considerations).

Take smoking in public. You may think that this behaviour is acceptable because an individual has the choice to consume a cigarette and they are merely harming themselves...no problem right? You may, however, think this behaviour is unacceptable. Second-hand smoke is hurtful to others because they could be harmed by someone else's behaviour. So what is deviant in many cases is subjective. What is criminal is the codification of what a society as a whole deems as deviant. Homicide is criminal because as a society we believe that taking another life is unacceptable and deviates from the accepted cultural norm that we wish our country to be like.

So using the text and your brains you need to come up with a list of things that are deviant but not criminal and a list of things that are criminal but not deviant. After you'll need to take one act from either list and explain why it should be criminalized or why it should be decriminalized. This will help us understand the Conflict, Interactionist and Consensus views on crime:

1. Consensus = the belief that the majority of citizens in society share common values and agree on what behaviours should be defined as criminal. 
2. Conflict = the belief that criminal behaviour is defined by those in a position of power to protect and advance their own self-interest.
3.  Interactionist = the belief that those with social power are able to impose their values on society as a whole, and these values then define criminal behaviour. 

BC Open School Intro Sociology text Chapter 7
Relationship between Deviance and Crime (Jlaw)
Cliff Notes Theories of Deviance


A Block Introduction to Law 9/10 -Today we'll look at the reality of crime in Canada. CTV News Crime Severity. After we'll try to understand what a victim of crime is. We'll discuss victims of crime and victimology and the "Theories of Victimization" (active & passive victimization; deviant place & high risk lifestyles; and routine activities).

B Block Law 12 - Today we will have a discussion in class about your rights that you have guaranteed through various legal documents in Canada (including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms the Canadian Human Rights Act and the BC Human Rights Code a great BC Human Rights Code pdf/booklet can be found here). We'll review what our fundamental freedoms are (section 2 a-d of the Charter). I'll have you back in partners to work through the Multani v. Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys (2006) case on pages 41-42 of the All About Law text. After we discuss the case I'd like you and your partner to choose four of the items/statements/scenarios from the list below. If you need to, use your All About Law text and then we'll figure out whether or not Section 2 of the Charter covers the following...


Lastly, I'll have you work on questions 1-4 of the Canada (Attorney General) v. JTI Macdonald Corp., (2007) on page 44 in the text and I'd also like you to work on question 3 from page 46 which deals with the R. v. Keegstra (1990) and R. v. Butler (1992) cases.