Troy Riddell

Authoritarian Judicial Activism: "in the #Venezuelan case, a court of last resort can still be ‘activist’ in more than one way, surviving and thriving as an authoritarian institution" I elaborate in ch 9 of our new book on Judicial Activism, details here peterlang.com/document/13236…

I argue that s.33 should not be off limits in criminal justice, though it would also be helpful if Parliament had better data and a more thoughtful approach to rights analysis when making criminal justice policy. thehub.ca/2024/06/03/no-…

How effective is the SIU (@SIUOntario) in practice? In my new piece with @KatePuddister, we summarize some of the key insights from our latest research article published in Policing & Society!

I can appreciate the frustration behind this editorial, but the proposals are rather piecemeal and not likely to be as effective as hoped. Dennis Baker and I have proposed a more comprehensive small-c conservative approach to criminal justice. macdonaldlaurier.ca/conservative-c…

@Sean_Speer Emphasizing the importance of ideas in policing is useful. A harm-focused approach, however, may be more effective than a broken windows one: policinginstitute.org/wp-content/upl…

Bring back broken window policing We’re living through a spike in property theft and certain violent crimes in Canada’s cities. These issues are now rising up the list of public priorities at the same time that law enforcement seems inherently incapable of addressing them.  A low point was last week when a Toronto police officer advised citizens to make their car keys readily available so that thieves wouldn’t break further into their homes and possibly harm them or their families. As University of Ottawa professor @MichaelKempa1 wrote for us this week, the message seemed abundantly clear: Canadians are essentially on their own.  These developments represent a reversal of past progress in reducing crime and disorder. After successive decades of rising crime, Canada’s crime rate actually fell by nearly half between 1992 and 2012.  This progress was driven by various factors, but a key one was the role of ideas. In the context of high urban crime rates in the 1970s and 1980s, conservative scholars—particularly in the U.S.—advanced the case for what was sometimes described as the “broken window theory” to restore law and order. The basic premise was that police ought to enforce all illegal infractions including relatively mundane ones such as vandalism or public drunkenness in order to create a culture in which the norm was for individuals to obey the law.  The subsequent decline in crime in North American cities represented a major validation of the “broken windows” model and the norm-shaping role of deterrence to improve the conditions for law, order, and public safety. The past decade or so has by and large witnessed the abandonment of those effective policing strategies. They came to be viewed as too insensitive to the socio-economic factors behind crime and the extent to which they fell (or perceived to fall) disproportionately on racial minorities. We’ve therefore seen a liberalization of law enforcement and policing which places a greater emphasis on responding to the underlying causes of criminality.  The most powerful expression of these intellectual trends was the “defund the police” movement which received significant attention in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in 2020. Although no jurisdiction fully defunded its police force, the movement’s ethos has influenced the operations, practices, and staffing of law enforcement in various cities across North America. The recent spike in crime demonstrates the soft-headed fallacy behind these developments. The pendulum has now swung in the direction of a pervasive “underpolicing” problem in many cities. Yet there’s nothing compassionate about subjecting the public to disorder and insecurity—especially since the consequences of crime disproportionately affect low-income individuals and racial minorities.  It must be said that a lot of this type of progressive thinking is quite literally preferencing the interests of criminals (regardless of their circumstances) over their fellow citizens. As a political matter, it’s an unsustainable approach to these issues. The Toronto police officer’s widely panned comments should put an end to it. Police must meet the rise of criminality with the restoration of deterrence. They need in short to enforce the law whether it’s car theft, drug use, or a broken window.

In a new paper, @TroyRiddell & Dennis Baker lay out the key planks of a credible, principled, ‘small-C’ conservative approach to criminal justice - with the aim of filling the void in the national conversation on criminal justice: macdonaldlaurier.ca/conservative-c…

@Mark_S_Harding Thanks, Mark! Look forward to your piece.

@TroyRiddell Good piece, Troy. I written something on this that should be out soon. Stay tuned!

Tried to distill my thoughts on the Ford government's judicial appointments controversy in the context of appointment processes, judicial independence & decision-making, and liberal democratic governance. theconversation.com/doug-fords-pol…

@BrendanLDell Thanks, Brendan! I agree completely that his comments around appointing "like-minded" judges without qualification or nuance is damaging to perceptions around the independence and fairness of the judicial process.

Great stuff as per usual from @TroyRiddell. I agree that we likely will only see incremental changes on the ground. In my opinion, the damaging part of Ford’s comments is the erosion of the public’s perception of an independent judiciary

@DrSChouinard Thanks, Stéphanie!

@TroyRiddell Thanks for writing this, Troy.

@irbrodie @UofGuelphNews @SupremeCourtCan Thanks, Ian!

@UofGuelphNews should know Justice Rowe @SupremeCourtCan gave several great kudos to your political science department and its research last night. @TroyRiddell has built a strong line up of researchers with national Impact.

legacy.com/ca/obituaries/… The law and politics community in Canada tends to be very collegial and supportive of one another-- Peter Russell, the scholar largely responsible for creating the subfield, set an excellent example with his generosity and grace.

Enjoyed watching the informative discussion on government-police relations today as part of the #POEC policy panels. Great work by Dennis Baker (@GuelphPOLS) as moderator and @KatePuddister as a panelist. Nice to see @uofg expertise in this area recognized and utilized!

@EmmMacfarlane Justice Brown is interesting on the current court. I wouldn't classify his dissent in the sex offender registry case along a "law and order" ideological axis-- more of a deference to Parliament approach, since he frequently votes for the accused in police conduct cases.

Perhaps naively, I am more optimistic. Emphasize personal responsibility, restitution, community, a role for victims, and cost savings for a restorative approach for some crimes. More attention to incapacitation and punishment for repeat/violent offenders. @mattgurney

Trying to think about whether intra-police independence (for incident commanders) changes anything about how we think of the police-political relationship? Maybe not if the (somewhat nebulous) policy-operations dichotomy remains our guide? nationalpost.com/news/politics/…

In my law & politics classes, I will ask students to imagine an alternate reality in which the Persons case did not happen. Would the path of women's rights/equality be any different? Often I find I am the one who has to propose this position for consideration. @DoubleAspect

@EmmMacfarlane Thanks, Emmett!

Dennis Baker and I wrote a piece on police implementation of Charter decisions for Policy Options-- it complements the recent series on police and the Charter in the @TorontoStar. Thanks to @IRPP for publishing! policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/sept…

New from Dr. Dennis Baker (@GuelphPOLS): The notwithstanding clause is the wrong way to fix a bad ‘life without parole’ Supreme Court decision thehub.ca/2022-08-19/den… via @TheHubCanada