The Canadian Criminal Justice System

For many Canadians, the media is their primary source of information related to events and occurrences that may be taking place within their community. As a primary source, the media holds significant weight in relation to the development of perceptions and understandings of both current and past events. These perceptions, while at times seemingly innocuous, can be uncritical or far-removed from the reality of the events as they exist outside of the framing of media depictions. Media depictions of crime, criminality and the criminal justice system, can, and often do, set the foundation for the development of understandings that are inconsistent with the experiences of those who are directly involved—in a professional capacity—with the Canadian criminal justice system. Consequently, these distorted, or perhaps more accurately, misinformed understandings, can lead to the development of myths that are perpetuated at the social and political level. These myths, when sustained, or affirmed, have the potential to produce consequences that undermine the intent of our criminal justice system.
It is the intent of this essay to address some of the myths that are related to verdicts of not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder [NCRMD]. In doing so, this paper will focus on the following myths: those found NCRMD are …show more content…
It has been a long-held principle of the Canadian criminal justice system that you cannot convict or punish an individual who did not have criminal intent. Criminal intent, as expressed in the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling in R. v. Oommen (1994), is established when it is determined that the accused “possess the intellectual ability to know right from wrong in an abstract sense…[and]…he or she…also posses the ability to apply that knowledge in a rational way to the alleged criminal