The author and legal scholar Benjamin Perrin, professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, talks about his new book Indictment: The Criminal Justice System on Trial (Aevo UTP, 2023), with Joseph Planta.

Indictment: The Criminal Justice System on Trial by Benjamin Perrin (Aevo UTP, 2023). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Indictment

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

The criminal justice system in Canada is facing an existential crisis. Press reports tell us there are a lot of people seemingly saying it’s too lenient, and not doing enough to keep people safe. The debate then gets into drugs, whether they should be criminalised further, despite the decriminalisation we’ve seen. Then there’s whether harm reduction is the way to go or treatment, and forced if need be. And there’s the ongoing debate as to whether we need more cops or if we should defund the police altogether. A new book takes the system on. Indictment: The Criminal Justice System on Trial has first-hand interviews with survivors, people who have committed offences, prosecutors, defense lawyers, corrections officers, public health experts, victim’s rights advocates, criminologists, trauma experts, psychologists, as well as victims of crime, all offering their stories and solutions. Benjamin Perrin, the book’s author, joins me now. I’ll ask him about the captivating and moving, sometimes harrowing stories he’s gathered, and the case he makes for a new vision of transformative justice. There are new ideas, as well as old ones, that just might work, that might solve the toxic drug crisis, and alleviate the homelessness, poverty, and trauma around us. It’s a compelling case that Mr. Perrin makes, as he dismantles a lot of the colonial, settler thinking that’s inherent in the justice system. And it’s convincing what he offers up as solutions in creating a new justice system from scratch. Benjamin Perrin is a professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. He has served the Prime Minister’s Office as in-house legal counsel, and lead policy advisor on criminal justice and public safety. He was also a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada. His last book, which he was on the program with in 2020 was Overdose: Heartbreak and Hope in Canada’s Opioid Crisis. This new book is published by Aevo UTP, which is an imprint of University of Toronto Press. Visit www.benjaminperrin.ca for more, including a podcast. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Benjamin Perrin; Professor Perrin, good morning.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (31.0MB)

Subscribe: RSS