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MEDIA CONSTRUCTIONS OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE PRODUCTION AND MITIGATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL HARMS: THE CASE OF MERCURY-CONTAMINATED FISH
 
Amy Fitzgerald
University of Windsor
 
Lori B. Baralt
California State University, Long Beach
 
Within the literature examining media depictions of crime and the criminal justice system, very little attention has been paid to the ways in which harms to the environment and human health have been constructed. This is not entirely surprising, given that the discipline of criminology has been reticent in addressing environmental harm more generally. This gap in the criminological imagination is beginning to be addressed within the growing field of green criminology, which seeks to focus attention on environmental harms as an important area of criminological investigation. Using a green criminological lens, this paper examines the case of mercury-contaminated fish as depicted in the Globe and Mail and New York Times from 2003 through 2008. Through qualitative content analysis, we examine the construction of responsibility for mercury contamination and for mitigating the attendant risks. We find that, in explaining the contamination of fish, both newspapers problematize the regulation of mercury-releasing industries by the state and pay a great deal of attention to the responsibility the state has to inform the public about the risks. However, little attention is paid to the responsibility of the mercury-releasing industries, the commercial fish industry, and restaurants and supermarkets to protect consumers. Furthermore, media attention is mainly directed at the responsibility of individual consumers – particularly those deemed most at risk of being harmed by mercury contamination – to limit the amount of mercury-rich fish they consume. These media depictions simultaneously foster a sense of individualized responsibility and normalize the risks posed by this environmental hazard, which is made to appear virtually inevitable, something that requires management, partly by the state, but mostly by vulnerable consumers.
 

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JUDGES' ATTITUDES ABOUT AND EXPERIENCES WITH SENTENCING CIRCLES IN INTIMATE-PARTNER ABUSE CASES
 
Joanne Belknap
University of Colorado - Boulder
 
Courtney McDonald
Georgia Southwestern State University
 
During the 1980s and 1990s, two important changes that occurred in criminal processing were seemingly at odds for intimate-partner abuse cases. The first was the move to treat gender-violence cases more seriously and more punitively. The second was the design and implementation of restorative justice practices, which was mandated for consideration in First Nations cases in R. v. Gladue in 1999. There has also been an ongoing debate globally as to whether restorative justice is appropriate in gender-violence cases. Additionally, some First Nations scholars worry that restorative justice is simply another way of controlling and punishing Aboriginal peoples. This study draws on interviews with 27 judges in a large Western province, a year before the Gladue decision, regarding their attitudes to and experiences with sentencing circles in intimate-partner abuse cases. The findings suggest cautious judicial support tempered by serious concerns.
 

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YOUTH JUSTICE IN CANADA: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES OF YOUTH PROBATION OFFICERS
 
Raymond R. Corrado
School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University

Karla Gronsdahl
School of Public Safety and Security, Justice Institute of British Columbia

David MacAlister
School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University

Irwin M. Cohen
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of the Fraser Valley

The Youth Criminal Justice Act, like its predecessor, the Young Offenders Act, incorporates philosophies, principles, and procedures from several theoretical models of youth justice. Concerns have been raised regarding how challenging it is for the various youth justice professionals responsible for implementing this law to apply it consistently across cases with varying characteristics. This article reports on a study of youth probation officers in British Columbia under the YCJA. It involves probation officers' reviewing five, actual, serious and/or violent young offender cases from across Canada. Their theoretical orientations to the different cases were derived from divergent models of youth justice. Despite the hypothesis that probation officers' responses would vary on the basis of case characteristics, overwhelming consistencies were evident in four of the five cases. The probation officers' approach typically rejected sentencing recommendations drawn from polarized models of youth justice, such as welfare or as crime control. Instead, probation officers preferred a model that represented a more eclectic approach, such as corporatist and modified justice.
 

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GENDERED TREATMENT: GIRLS AND TREATMENT ORDERS IN BAIL COURT
 
Jane B. Sprott
Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Ryerson University
 
Anthony N. Doob
Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto
 
Historically, girls, more so than boys, have been the recipients of rehabilitative efforts within the youth justice system. While the rehabilitative focus of youth justice legislation has diminished over the decades, there is still concern that girls may be more likely than boys to be recipients of treatment-based responses. We investigated this at the pre-trial stage, examining bail conditions placed on youths. Examining a sample of bail cases from a large youth court in Toronto, extending from April 2003 through to December 2008, we found that girls were significantly more likely than boys to be given a condition of attending a “treatment program,” especially if the offence was a minor non-violent offence. While the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) is very clear that youths cannot be detained or sentenced to custody for child welfare reasons (ss. 29 and 39(5)), there is nothing that explicitly prohibits the imposition of “rehabilitative” bail conditions. While the paternalistic treatment/rehabilitation efforts from earlier in the twentieth century may have faded considerably (Sprott and Doob 2009), they appear to cast a long shadow, especially over girls in the bail process.
 
 

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