How Did We Get Here? Exploring Socio-Political Influences in Canadian Penitentiaries: 1800-1955

This thesis examines how political and social issues have molded and alteredCanada's penal system since the nineteenth-century. From early Anglo-Canadian society to Joseph Archambault's 1938 Report of the Royal Commission to Investigate the Penal System of Canada, the Canadian penal system waxed and waned against social and political tides. As rehabilitative justice took hold throughout the developed world in the early twentieth century, Canada attempted to shift its justice ideologies only to find that punitive justice had created strong footings. This made reform challenging to implement.

Author Keywords: Archambault Report, Canadian penal system, Canadian prisons, prison press, prison systems, prison writing