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Author Strange, Carolyn, 1959- author.

Title The death penalty and sex murder in Canadian history / Carolyn Strange
Published Toronto ; Buffalo ; London : Published for the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History by University of Toronto Press, [2020]

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Description 1 online resource
Series Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History series
Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History series.
Contents The Politics of the Death Penalty and the Problem of Sex Murder -- Sex Fiends and the Death Penalty at the Turn of Canada's Century -- Contesting Convictions and Questioning Culpability between the Wars -- Sexual Psychopathy and Penal Severity in the Post-War Era -- Sexual Psychopathy, Insanity, and the Death Penalty under Scrutiny in the 1950s -- Sex Murder in the Sixties and the Demise of the Death Penalty
Summary "From Confederation to the partial abolition of the death penalty a century later, defendants convicted of sexually motivated killings and sexually violent homicides in Canada were more likely than any other condemned criminals to be executed for their crimes. Despite the emergence of psychiatric expertise in criminal trials, moral disgust and anger proved more potent in courtrooms, the public mind, and the hearts of the bureaucrats and politicians responsible for determining the outcome of capital cases. Outsiders of all types--drifters, the unemployed, the unconventional--were the first to fall within the radar of police who were pressured to catch culprits. Although the vast majority of convicted sex killers were white, Canada's racist notions of "the Indian mind" meant that Indigenous defendants faced the presumption of guilt. Black defendants were also subjected to discriminatory treatment, including near lynchings. Even prior to Steven Truscott's controversial death sentence for a sex murder in 1959, abolitionists expressed concern that prejudices and poverty created the prospect of wrongful convictions. Unique in the ways it reveals the emotional drivers of capital punishment in delivering inequitable outcomes, The Death Penalty and Sex Murder in Canadian History provides a thorough overview of sex murder and the death penalty in Canada. It serves as an essential history and a richly documented cautionary tale for the present."-- Provided by publisher
Analysis Canada
Steven Truscott
capital
convictions
criminal justice
death
gender
history
law
murder
penalty
penology
psychiatry
punishment
sex crime
sexuality
wrongful
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on October 19, 2020)
Subject Capital punishment -- Canada -- History
Lust murder -- Canada -- History
HISTORY -- Canada -- General.
Capital punishment
Lust murder
Canada
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781487538101
1487538103
9781487538118
1487538111