![]() | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
William Thomas McGrath (1918 - September 30, 1999) was the longest-serving executive director of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association from 1951 to 1982. [1]
McGrath was born in 1918 in Pointe-du-Chêne, New Brunswick, to William McGrath and Maude McGrath (née Tucker). McGrath earned a bachelor's degree from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, before entering the Canadian Armed Forces in 1941; he then served as a Captain with the New Brunswick Division of Carleton and York Regiment, was wounded in the Battle of Rome and became a decorated war hero. [2]
While in Italy, McGrath served on a number of military courts-martial "as both a judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney." What he saw in courts made him question the value of a punitive approach to justice, and so he pursued a master's degree in social work upon his return from the war (he wanted to study criminology, but said no program was available in Canada at the time). Upon graduating with a master's from the University of Toronto, he worked for the Department of Public Welfare in Nova Scotia. [3]
In 1951, [1] McGrath joined the Canadian Welfare Council as an executive director. [4] On February 1, 1956, he was named executive director of the newly formed Canadian Corrections Association, which was the result of a merger of the council's Division on Crime and Delinquency, and the Canadian Penal Association; the new association remained a division of the Canadian Welfare Council. [3] [5]
McGrath served as secretary and member of the Special Committee on Corrections (better known as the Ouimet Committee for its chairman, Quebec Superior Court Justice Roger Ouimet), which was appointed in 1964 by then-Canadian Minister of Justice Guy Favreau "to study the broad field of corrections, in its widest sense and to recommend … what changes, if any, should be made in the law and practice relating to these matters." [6] Among many other findings, the committee's final report in 1969 recommended the complete abolition of corporal punishment in Canada; the practice was banned by the Canadian Parliament three years later. [7]
While serving on the committee, McGrath produced the anthology textbook Crime and Its Treatment in Canada, "addressed primarily to university students in the various disciplines involved in the control of illegal behaviour, such as criminology, law, medicine, psychology, social work, sociology, and theology, and to students in the many in-service training-courses offered by the police and correctional services across the country." [8] It proved popular and influential: It was reprinted five times between 1965 and 1980. [9] The book contained a chapter by Frank P. Miller, who would later serve as president of the Canadian Corrections Association. [3]
McGrath retired from the Association (then called the Canadian Criminology and Corrections Association) in 1982. At the time, Association President Gillian Sandeman remarked: "When it was left to Bill McGrath to chart his path, he chose a route for which the guideposts have been his professional skills, his knowledge of the criminal justice process and a deeply humane philosophy of life: his goal has always been crime prevention in its widest sense." [3]
McGrath was married to Flora MacDonald Wilkie. Together, they had 3 children: Patricia Feasey (from Wilkie's previous marriage), Jefferson Christine and Canadian activist Maude Barlow.[ further explanation needed ] [2]
Events from the year 1917 in Canada.
Events from the year 1937 in Canada.
Crime in Canada is generally considered low overall. Under the Canadian constitution, the power to establish criminal law and rules of investigation is vested in the federal Parliament. The provinces share responsibility for law enforcement, and while the power to prosecute criminal offences is assigned to the federal government, responsibility for prosecutions is delegated to the provinces for most types of criminal offences. Laws and sentencing guidelines are uniform throughout the country, but provinces vary in their level of enforcement.
The Correctional Service of Canada, also known as Correctional Service Canada or Corrections Canada, is the Canadian federal government agency responsible for the incarceration and rehabilitation of convicted criminal offenders sentenced to two years or more. The agency has its headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario.
Public Safety Canada, legally incorporated as the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (PSEPC), is the department of the Government of Canada responsible for (most) matters of public safety, emergency management, national security, and emergency preparedness in Canada.
The Florida State University College of Criminology and Criminal Justice is one of sixteen colleges comprising the Florida State University (FSU). The College is the oldest program of its kind. It offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees.
In Canada, the criminal legal system is divided into federal and provincial/territorial jurisdictions. Provincial/territorial correctional facilities hold people who have been sentenced to less than two years in custody and people being held on remand. Federal Correctional Facilities, which are the responsibility of Correctional Service of Canada—is concerned with people who have been sentenced to two years or more in custody.
Christiane Ouimet was the first Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada. She retired on October 18, 2010.
The Honourable Patrick J. Boyle is a Justice of the Tax Court of Canada. He was appointed to the court in 2007 and presides in English and French cases. He served as Acting Associate Chief Justice following the 2021 retirement of Associate Chief Justice Lucie LaMarre until the December 2023 appointment of Associate Chief Justice Anick Pelletier. He is a member of the Court’s Rules Committee and chaired its Judicial Education Committee. In 2014, Justice Boyle was named by Euromoney's ITR International Tax Review as one of the 25 most influential people in the tax world.
A Gladue report is a type of pre-sentencing and bail hearing report that a Canadian court can request when considering sentencing an offender of Indigenous background under Section 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code.
Ferndale Institution is the former name of the minimum-security federal correctional annex of Mission Institution, now referred as Mission Minimum Institution. Is located in Mission, British Columbia, in the central Fraser Valley, about 80 kilometres east of Vancouver. Ferndale opened in 1973 and can house up to 166 inmates, who live in residential-style units on a federal reserve shared with Mission Institution.
The Stockholm Prize in Criminology is an international prize in the field of criminology, established under the aegis of the Swedish Ministry of Justice. It has a permanent endowment in the trust of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology Foundation. The Stockholm Prize in Criminology is a distinguished part of the Stockholm Criminology Symposium, an annual event taking place during three days in June.
Jeffrey Ian Ross is a scholar, professor, and criminologist specializing in the fields of policing, corrections, political crime, violence, street culture, graffiti and street art, and crime and justice in American Indian communities. Since 1998 Ross has been a professor at the University of Baltimore. He is a former co-chair and chair of the Division of Critical Criminology and Social Justice of the American Society of Criminology. Ross is an author, co-author, editor, and co-editor of numerous books.
The Special Committee on Corrections was a committee appointed by the Canadian Minister of Justice Guy Favreau in 1964 “to study the broad field of corrections, in its widest sense and to recommend … what changes, if any, should be made in the law and practice relating to these matters.” The Committee was named after its chairman, Quebec Superior Court Justice Roger Ouimet.
The Canadian Criminal Justice Association (CCJA) is a national, voluntary organization founded in 1919, dedicated to improving Canada's justice system. Its office is in Ottawa.
Frank P. Miller was a major figure in criminal-justice reform in Canada who helped create the modern parole system. He served as executive director of the National Parole Service, president of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, and was a founding member of the Parole Board of Canada. He was also the first classification officer in the Canadian penitentiary system.
Donald Arthur Andrews was a Canadian correctional psychologist and criminologist who taught at Carleton University, where he was a founding member of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice. He is recognized for having criticized Robert Martinson's influential paper concluding that "nothing works" in correctional treatment. He also helped to advance the technique of risk assessment to better predict the chance of recidivism among offenders. He is credited with coining the terms "criminogenic needs" and "risk-need-responsivity", both of which have since been used and studied extensively in the criminological literature.
Indigenous peoples in Canada are significantly overrepresented in the Canadian justice system. They make up approximately 30 per cent of all incarcerated individuals in Canada despite being approximately 4 per cent of the total population. Explanations for this overrepresentation include historical injustices – and the contemporary outcomes which are results of that history – faced by Indigenous peoples, as well as structural issues within the current criminal justice system itself. These issues include over-policing, ineffective representation in court, inadequate application of bail, and over-sentencing, which are all indications of systemic racism. While these issues affect Indigenous peoples broadly, there are specific implications for Indigenous women and youth.
Prisoners' Justice Day is a solidarity movement that takes place annually on August 10. The movement began in Canada in 1974 in support of prisoners’ rights and to remember all the people who have died of unnatural deaths while incarcerated. The first Prisoners' Justice Day was held at the Millhaven Institution on August 10, 1975, on the first anniversary of Edward Nalon's death. In addition to a day of mourning, six prisoners took part in an eighteen-day hunger strike. In 1976, August 10 was recognized as a memorial day where prisoners would strike in opposition to the use of solitary confinement and to protest inmate conditions within the Prison System by going on a one-day hunger strike and refusing to work.