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Jan 8, 2025 | 
law360.ca | David Dorson
Law360 Canada (January 8, 2025, 11:35 AM EST) -- Some time ago I wrote a column about my initial time on parole in a halfway house and promised to return to that topic — which I am now finally doing. To recap, after my release on parole, about 40 per cent of the way through my sentence, I had to spend several months in a halfway house. This is “day parole.” As I wrote last time, day parole made very little sense for me, who was considered very low risk and could live in my own home.
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Nov 13, 2024 | 
law360.ca | David Dorson
Law360 Canada (November 13, 2024, 12:02 PM EST) -- Prison jobs are bad jobs. Let me qualify that. They can be good jobs in terms of pay, benefits and job security, especially for people with relatively little formal education. That is the main reason many people stay with them. But from the standpoint of the actual daily experience, working in a prison is bad in many of the same ways that being a prisoner is.
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Oct 9, 2024 | 
law360.ca | David Dorson
Law360 Canada (October 9, 2024, 9:29 AM EDT) -- A number of people who read this column and know me have asked me why I don’t start using my real name. After all, it’s quite a few years since my arrest and guilty plea. Time to get past that, they say. And my writing, they say, would be more compelling if people knew who I was. They might be right, but I remain very nervous about it for several reasons.
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Sep 19, 2024 | 
law360.ca | Emily Stewart |David Dorson
Recently in this publication, retired judge Norman Douglas Law360 Canada (September 19, 2024, 11:02 AM EDT) -- argued that Canada should have harsher penalties for some people who commit particularly heinous crimes, possibly including the death penalty. While appealing to some on an emotional level, Douglas’s argument does not fit the facts. Douglas bases his argument primarily on one case.
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Sep 12, 2024 | 
law360.ca | David Dorson
Law360 Canada (September 12, 2024, 2:02 PM EDT) -- The title of this column comes from a poster I saw many years ago; the caption appeared over a picture of an empty jail cell with a barred door standing open. It accurately captures the experience of many people after release from prison. Most people think that when a prison sentence is over, the person goes back to a normal life.
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Aug 12, 2024 | 
law360.ca | David Dorson
Law360 Canada (August 12, 2024, 2:43 PM EDT) -- When I was first arrested, I knew very little about our legal system. I suppose I assumed what we hear all the time, that each person has a right to a fair trial and to be convicted of a crime only when the evidence is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” I soon learned that this admirable principle is not what actually happens.
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Jul 11, 2024 | 
law360.ca | David Dorson
For several months I had been living in a cell with every aspect of my life regulated in ways ranging from uncomfortable to terrible. But in the minimum security, where I spent almost exactly a year, I lived in a house shared with other prisoners, in either a shared room or my own bedroom. Instead of having to eat the really low-quality food given to us in the other two places I had been, I could buy and cook my own food.
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Jun 11, 2024 | 
law360.ca | David Dorson
Law360 Canada (June 11, 2024, 9:12 AM EDT) -- Being searched is a common occurrence in prison. I had only been on my range in the assessment unit for a day or two when the first search of our range took place. Without notice, we were all told to go into the common room while a group of guards went through all the cells, searching for anything that might not be allowed. This took 30 or 40 minutes; cells are small and sparsely furnished, so searching is not very complicated.
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May 9, 2024 | 
law360.ca | David Dorson
Law360 Canada (May 9, 2024, 11:05 AM EDT) -- Being charged with a crime will cost you in many ways. One of them is that you will inevitably lose people who matter to you. Many people will drop out of your life — and if you are lucky, some will also show themselves as true friends. I had a big network of colleagues, many of whom I considered friends and quite a few of whom I had worked with for many years. Almost all of that disappeared the day I was arrested, and the arrest was publicized by police.
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Apr 16, 2024 | 
law360.ca | David Dorson
Law360 Canada (April 16, 2024, 2:11 PM EDT) -- Let me take you through a day in my life as a prisoner in a medium security assessment unit in a prison in Canada. I spent about three months in this setting. Others’ prison experiences will differ in detail but not in essence, except that it is significantly worse for the 20 per cent of federal prisoners and almost all provincial prisoners who are in maximum security settings. And quite a bit easier for the 20 per cent in minimum security.
