Abusing Power

The Canadian Experience

Edited by Susan C. Boyd, Dorothy E. Chunn and Robert Menzies  

Paperback $34.95

Abusing Power: The Canadian Experience is a book about crime, law, power and social (in)justice. The contributors include academics, legal practitioners, journalists and social activists who have been studying and struggling for years against the abuse of power in myriad realms of Canadian life. This book represents the first systematic effort in this country to integrate a variety of topics related to power abuse into a single collection.

Each essay has been chosen on the strength of its capacity to further academic and public understandings of power relations and to illuminate the problem of upperworld wrongdoing. Selected topics span some of the most controversial issues and notorious examples of power abuse in recent Canadian history. This book is useful not only as a primary text in criminology and law courses but also as a secondary reader for others who want to contextualize and establish links with their teaching and research in feminist and cultural studies, communications, economics, political science, corporate law, criminal justice, and the sociology of professions.

  • Crime & Law
  • ISBN: 9781552660478
  • January 2001
  • 286 Pages
  • For sale worldwide

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Contents

  • Editors’ Introduction (Robert Menzies, Dorothy E. Chunn and Susan Boyd)
  • PART I: THE STATE
  • Active Citizenship is the Best Defence Against Abuse of Power (Judy Rebick)
  • From the Welfare State to the No-Second-Chances State (Ted Schrecker)
  • Closing the Nation’s Ranks: Racism, Sexism, and the Abuse of Power in Canadian Immigration Policy (Sunera Thobani)
  • PART II: THE POLITICAL ELITE
  • The Somalia Affair: A Personal Account of Speaking Truth to Power (John Dixon)
  • So you don’t like our Cover Story-Well we have others: The Development of Canada’s Signals Intelligence Capacity through Administrative Slight of Hand, 1941-2000 (Stuart Farson)
  • The Devine Regime in Saskatchewan, 1982-1991: The Tory Caucus Fraud and Other Abuses of Power (J.F. Conway)
  • PART III: CORPORATIONS
  • Abusing Corporate Power: Death of a Concept (Laureen Snider)
  • Westray and After: Power, Truth, and News Reporting of the Westray Mine Disaster (John McMullan)
  • Consumers to the Rescue? Campaigning Against Corporate Abuse of Labour (Judy Fudge)
  • PART IV: PROFESSIONS
  • Psychological-Illusions: Professionalism and the Abuse of Power (Tana Dineen)
  • Drugged, Exploited, Labeled, Blamed: How Psychiatry Oppresses Women (P. Susan Penfold)
  • The ‘Fuck Your Buddy’ System and its Adversaries (Edgar Z. Friedenberg)
  • PART V: CRIMINAL (IN)JUSTICE
  • Racism in Justice: The Report of the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System (Toni Williams)
  • Unredressed Wrong: The Extradition of Leonard Peltier from Canada (Dianne L. Martin)
  • Women’s Imprisonment and the State: The Praxis of Power (Gayle K. Hori)
  • References

Authors

  • Susan C. Boyd

    Susan Boyd is Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Human and Social Development at the University of Victoria. She is the author of a number of articles and books, including: Mothers and Illicit Drugs: Transcending the myths; From Witches to Crack Moms: Women drug law, and policy; Hooked: Drug war films in Britain, Canada, and the U.S.; and co-author of Raise Shit!: Social action saving lives and Killer Weed: Marijuana grow-ops, media, and justice. She also works with national and community organizations that advocate for drug policy reform and harm reduction initiatives.

  • Dorothy E. Chunn

    Simon Fraser

    Dorothy E. Chunn, Professor of Sociology, received her B.A. in English and History from the University of British Columbia and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Toronto. Her research and publications are concentrated primarily in the area of feminist socio-legal studies. Recent research projects have focused on feminism, law, and social change in Canada since the 1960s; poor women’s experiences of health and housing; and the reform of Canadian child custody law.

  • Robert Menzies

    Simon Fraser

    Dr. Robert Menzies, Professor of Sociology, received his B.A. in Psychology from York University, and his M.A. in Criminology and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Toronto. Dr. Menzies has taught at SFU since 1982, and recently spent a term as J.S. Woodsworth Resident Scholar in the Humanities. He is also an Associate Member of the Department of History. Dr. Menzies is a former recipient of the SFU Excellence in Teaching Award. His current projects include an in-progress book on the cultural history of ‘criminal insanity’; an inquiry into the encounters of racialized people with early 20th-century psychiatry; a study of eugenics and sterilization law in British Columbia; and, with colleagues across the country, the development of a research and education website on the history of madness in Canada.

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Fernwood Publishing Company Limited gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, the Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage, the Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism under the Manitoba Publishers Marketing Assistance Program and the Province of Manitoba, through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, for our publishing program.