International and Comparative Criminal Justice and Urban Governance from PART 2 - Comparative penal policies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2011
Introduction
Canada does not fit easily into the typology of political economies and their penal tendencies proposed by Cavadino and Dignan (2006a; 2006b). Based on a study of penal systems in twelve contemporary capitalist countries (not including Canada), these scholars demonstrate a relationship between a nation's political economy on the one hand and the punitiveness of its penal culture (particularly as expressed by its rate of imprisonment) on the other hand. Indeed, they suggest that certain political regimes (e.g. neoliberalism, conservative corporatism, etc.) have distinct penal landscapes (i.e. more or less punitive penal policies).
In terms of penal policies, most observers would probably assume that Canada would fit neatly within those nations described as having political economies and penal tendencies that could be categorised as neoliberal. This placement would certainly seem obvious given geographic, economic and cultural proximity to the country highlighted by Cavadino and Dignan as the ‘archetypical example’ of this group (USA). In addition, it would seem natural that Canada would be grouped with the ‘other examples’ of the neoliberal political economy listed by these scholars – England and Wales, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – given their historical (e.g. as members of the Commonwealth) and institutional (similar legal systems) ties.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.