Calgary: a study of crime, offenders and the police court, 1929-1934

Date
1978
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Abstract
The decade of the 1930s in Canada has been characterized as a period of turbulence, social unrest and at times lawlessness. The more dramatic manifestations of the violence and disorder associated with the protests of the unemployed have been chronicled. Unfortunately, of the little commentary which exists on the general incidence of crime, the bulk consists of unsubstantiated and often contradictory personal observations. Certainly, a systematic examination of the pattern of crime, the offenders or the response of the police and the judiciary has been approached only reluctantly. This is particularly surprising in view of the availability of the most relevant sources for such an enquiry: police and court records. This study quantitatively addresses these questions through the examination of a single community--Calgary--both before and during the Depression. Arrest books of the municipal police for the selected years 1929 and 1934 supplemented by police court records and documents relating to civic government fonn the evidential basis of the analysis. The police records indicate the offence charged, the characteristics of those arrested and the disposition. From this one may assess the impact of the Depression on the amount or kind of crime committed by certain types of offenders and in turn the effect this had on the treatment of offenders. The relationship between poverty and crime as well as assumptions about the degree of judicial punitiveness in an economic crisis may therefore be tested. An investigation of these questions is imperative to a more thorough understanding of our social and legal response to the conditions of the 1930s.
Description
Bibliography: p. 141.
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Citation
Watson, N. B. (1978). Calgary: a study of crime, offenders and the police court, 1929-1934 (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/18391
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