43 Criminal Justice
Criminology
Ilgin Yorukoglu (Borough of Manhattan Community College)
Licence: CC BY
Formats: Online, EPUB, PDF, and more
Decolonization and Justice: An Introductory Overview
Edited by Muhammad Asadullah (University of Regina)
2022
Licence: CC BY
Decolonization and Justice: An Introductory Overview emerged from the undergraduate students’ final assignment in JS-419 on Advanced Seminar in Criminal Justice at the University of Regina’s Department of Justice Studies. This book focused on decolonization of multiple justice-related areas, such as policing, the court system, prison, restorative justice, and the studies of law and criminology. This is quite likely one of the few student-led book projects in Canada covering the range of decolonization topics. Ten student authors explored the concept of decolonization in law, policing, prison, court, mental health, transitional justice and restorative justice.
Formats: Online, EPUB, and PDF
eAccess to Justice
Edited by Karim Benyekhlef (Université de Montréal), Jane Bailey (University of Ottawa), Jacquelyn Burkell (Western University), and Fabien Gélinas (McGill University)
2016
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA
Will digitization projects affect fundamental justice principles? Part I examines claims that technology will improve justice system efficiency with an emphasis on the complicated relationship between privacy and transparency. Part II examines the implementation of technologies in the justice system and the associated challenges and emphasizes that these technologies should be implemented with care to ensure the best possible outcome for access to a fair and effective justice system. The chapters in Part III adopt the standpoints of sociology, political theory and legal theory and provide a unique and valuable framework for thinking with the required sophistication about legal change. (Description from UO Press)
Format: PDF
Feminist Advocacy, Family Law and Violence Against Women: International Perspectives
Edited by Mahnaz Afkhami (Women’s Learning Partnership), Yakın Ertürk and Ann Elizabeth Mayer (University of Pennsylvania)
2019
Licence: CC BY
Around the world, discriminatory legislation prevents women from accessing their human rights. It can affect almost every aspect of a woman’s life, including the right to choose a partner, inherit property, hold a job, and obtain child custody. Often referred to as family law, these laws have contributed to discrimination, and to the justification of gender-based violence globally. This book demonstrates how women across the world are contributing to legal reform, helping to shape non-discriminatory policies and to counter current legal and social justifications for gender-based violence. The book takes case studies from Brazil, India, Iran, Lebanon, Nigeria, Palestine, Senegal, and Turkey, using them to demonstrate in each case the varied history of family law, and the wide variety of issues impacting women’s equality in legislation. Interviews with prominent women’s rights activists in three additional countries are also included, giving personal accounts of the successes and failures of past reform efforts. Overall, the book provides a complex global picture of current trends and strategies in the fight for a more egalitarian society. These findings come at a critical moment for change. Across the globe, family law issues are contentious. We are simultaneously witnessing an increased demand for women’s equality and the resurgence of fundamentalist forces that impede reform, invoking rules rooted in tradition, culture, and interpretations of religious texts. The outcome of these disputes has enormous ramifications for women’s roles in the family and society. This book tackles these complexities head on, and will interest activists, practitioners, students, and scholars working on women’s rights and gender-based violence. (Description from Routledge)
Format: PDF
Forensic Toxicology: From Crime Scene to the Virtual Lab
Dr. Sanela Martic
2022
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA
Take a virtual tour from fundamental toxicology through laboratory demonstrations to court cases that focus on analysis, interpretation and reporting of toxicological results in a forensic science context.
Formats: Online
Introduction to Criminal Investigation: Processes, Practices and Thinking
Rod Gehl and Darryl Plecas
2017
Licence: CC BY-NC
Introduction to Criminal Investigation, Processes, Practices, and Thinking, as the title suggests, is a teaching text describing and segmenting criminal investigations into its component parts to illustrate the craft of criminal investigation. Delineating criminal investigation within the components of task-skills and thinking-skills, this book describes task-skills such incident response, crime scene management, evidence management, witness management, and forensic analysis, as essential foundations supporting the critical thinking-skills of offence validation and theory development for the creation of effective investigative plans aimed at forming reasonable grounds for belief. The goal of the text is to assist the reader in forming their own structured mental map of investigative thinking practices.
Formats: Online, PDF, MOBI, EPUB, and more
Introduction to Criminology
Shereen Hassan and Dan Lett (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
2023
Licence: CC BY
This textbook focuses on criminology from a Canadian perspective. As a whole, the OER is amply broad to serve as the main textbook for an introductory course, yet each chapter is deep enough to be useful as a supplement for subject-area courses; authors use plain and accessible language as much as possible, but introduce more advanced, technical concepts where appropriate; the text gives due attention to the historical “canon” of mainstream criminological thought, but it also challenges many of these ideas by exploring alternative, critical, and marginalized perspectives.
Formats: Online, PDF, EPUB
Making Sense of a Global Pandemic: Relationship Violence & Working Together Towards a Violence Free Society
Balbir Gurm, Glaucia Salgado, Jennifer Marchbank, and Sheila Early (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
2020
Licence: CC BY-NC
This online book provides a wealth of information on relationship violence focusing amongst other things on definitions; the scope of the problem, theoretical frameworks, interventions and prevention strategies. It provides information on legal statutes (Provincial; Federal and International) and contains numerous links to additional resources to inform the reader. The book also highlights some emerging issues such as the importance of cultural safety; relationship violence in the workplace and on post-secondary campuses.
Formats : Online
Psychoactive Substance Use and Social Policy
Jacqueline Lewis (University of Windsor)
2022
Licence: CC BY
This open educational resource is developed as a third-year level, university course on Psychoactive Substance Use and Social Policy. It includes 10 weeks of digital course content, usable as a stand-alone or supplemental course package, or single chapters can be incorporated into courses on related topics. The course is designed so that it can be taught in several ways: as a fully online asynchronous course, or as a flipped learning hybrid course combining asynchronous learning via the Pressbook content with face-to-face class and small group discussion (either online or in person). Course materials innovatively combine chapter content, with embedded links to audio/video material and short readings. A set of required additional readings are included at the end of each chapter. Materials come from a variety of sources (e.g., scholarly publications, government and non-governmental reports, the Conversation, media reports, other internet content, etc.). Each chapter starts with several questions for students to think about as they complete the chapter materials and ends with an assignment designed to enhance critical engagement with issues relevant to the topic. Chapter assignments can be assigned as individual or group projects (face-to-face or via synchronous breakout groups during class time) or some combination of the two. The questions at the start of each chapter can also be used to guide class discussion.
Formats: Online, EPUB, PDF, and more