The Power to Criminalize: Violence, Inequality and the Law

The tension between traditionalist legal theories that maintain that the law dispenses justice in an impartial fashion and critical theories that maintain that the law reproduces gender, race, and class inequalities provides a context for this investigation into law's complicity in perpetuating disparities. Police reports, prosecuting lawyer reports, memos, interviews with defense lawyers, sentencing reports, and other primary sources from Canadian violent crime cases illustrate the prejudicial strategies used in litigation. Linguistic nuances that describe a neighborhood celebration as a "birthday party" or a "drinking binge" are among the ways stereotypes are perpetuated. This analysis raises questions about how the law can be applied to realize a more just society.