A survey and analysis of Canadian statutes and cases affecting the management of the mentally disordered demonstrates that this area of law has experienced several periods of reform since 1900. In the early 1900's, legislation was characterized by 'limited legalism'. Governments subsequently eased, removed, and then re-imposed forms of judicial and quasi-judicial supervision over the activities of medical practitioners, and the periods of reform are referred to as 'medicalization', 'enhanced medicalization', and the 'new legalism'. The law reforms are associated with changes in state strategies for the management of the mentally disordered, and the relationship between these reforms and changes, the state, structural conditions (e.g., shifts in economic policy), and human agency (e.g., the work of reformers) is explored through an analysis of the emergence of 'enhanced medicalization' in the 1950's/60's, and the rise of the 'new legalism' in the 1970's/80's. This includes a detailed case study of shifts in strategy and the process of law reform in the province of British Columbia. This component of the research involved an analysis of documentary and archival materials, and the structuralist theoretical trajectory within the neo-Marxist sociology of state and law is utilized to explain the changes. Enhanced medicalization was an integral part of a strategy involving de-institutionalization, an abandonment of segregated confinement, and the use of community-based resources integrated with the health care component of a Keynesian, 'welfare state'. Institutions were seriously over-crowded, ineffective, expensive, and discredited, and the emergence of social assistance and other features of the welfare state enabled the development of alternatives. The conditions were favourable to the efforts of a group of reformers that was an auxiliary part of the state apparatus; namely, the Canadian Mental Health Association. The latter constructed a strategy and supporting legislation which advanced the interests of psychiatry and resolved the state's order maintenance and legitimation problems in a manner consistent with welfare state expansion. Economic difficulties and changes which began to emerge in the 1970's created new problems for the state, and cost-stabilization and restraint measures were imposed throughout the politically sensitive health care field. The strategy for the management of the mentally disordered consequently shifted to, in particular, accelerated de-institutionalization aimed at hospital closure. In order to facilitate and legitimate the shift, the state has adopted reforms proposed by the patients' rights movement and, despite the objections of organized psychiatry, introduced legislation which limits the use of hospitals and erodes medical domination (i.e., the new legalism). The contributions to the sociologies of social control, state and law are discussed and the convergence of these fields is identified. The implications for the neo-Marxist theoretical research programme are examined. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

The last decade has seen the development of an unprecedented profile for aboriginal concerns over the inadequacies of the criminal justice system. This thesis examines the major commissions of inquiry that were established to address criminal justice reforms for aboriginal Canadians. Through a comparison of these inquiries, it is my intention to provide a greater understanding as to why some commissions have had a more positive role to play in initiating policy change, while others have been less than satisfactory in promoting the needs of aboriginal persons. Analysis reveals that commissions of inquiry are most often established to address more general concerns about the impact of the criminal justice system on aboriginal peoples, rather than to investigate specific cases in which there was a miscarriage of justice. My findings also reveal that the current criminal justice system can and should be improved, without in any way detracting from the movement toward the larger social, political and economic goal of self- determination. Due to the fact that autonomous solutions remain prevalent in the academic literature, future inquiries will be required to acknowledge this perspective. An appreciation of the variety of concerns held by aboriginal individuals can only be made possible through extensive consultation with aboriginal communities and utilizing creative and innovative means of gathering research. By providing an open process, commissions will be able to encompass views that may not be prevalent in academic circles, but accepted at a grass roots level. On the much larger question of the policy impact of commissions of inquiry, they have been useful institutions for opening up the policy debate in regards to criminal justice reforms for aboriginal Canadians. Frequently these inquiries have been faulted because their specific recommendations are not accepted. However, inquiries are valuable because they provide one of the few occasions for defining public issues, including debate about reformist and radical conceptions of the issues. Consequently it is more useful to assess commissions of inquiry for their role in the development of policy debate.

The last decade has seen the development of an unprecedented profile for aboriginal concerns over the inadequacies of the criminal justice system. This thesis examines the major commissions of inquiry that were established to address criminal justice reforms for aboriginal Canadians. Through a comparison of these inquiries, it is my intention to provide a greater understanding as to why some commissions have had a more positive role to play in initiating policy change, while others have been less than satisfactory in promoting the needs of aboriginal persons. Analysis reveals that commissions of inquiry are most often established to address more general concerns about the impact of the criminal justice system on aboriginal peoples, rather than to investigate specific cases in which there was a miscarriage of justice. My findings also reveal that the current criminal justice system can and should be improved, without in any way detracting from the movement toward the larger social, political and economic goal of self- determination. Due to the fact that autonomous solutions remain prevalent in the academic literature, future inquiries will be required to acknowledge this perspective. An appreciation of the variety of concerns held by aboriginal individuals can only be made possible through extensive consultation with aboriginal communities and utilizing creative and innovative means of gathering research. By providing an open process, commissions will be able to encompass views that may not be prevalent in academic circles, but accepted at a grass roots level. On the much larger question of the policy impact of commissions of inquiry, they have been useful institutions for opening up the policy debate in regards to criminal justice reforms for aboriginal Canadians. Frequently these inquiries have been faulted because their specific recommendations are not accepted. However, inquiries are valuable because they provide one of the few occasions for defining public issues, including debate about reformist and radical conceptions of the issues. Consequently it is more useful to assess commissions of inquiry for their role in the development of policy debate. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate