NCJ Number
166858
Date Published
1995
Length
34 pages
Annotation
This paper assesses the nature and degree of state intervention and its accompanying socially defined legitimacy in relation to crime and insanity as reflected in a complex of legal and proposed institutional reforms arising in the late 1820's and 1830's in Upper Canada.
Abstract
Two noted products of these developments were penal and lunacy reform; in particular, the Kingston penitentiary and initially a temporary asylum and then a model provincial lunatic asylum in Toronto, which was completed in 1849. Although these reforms did not solve problems of crime, insanity, or disruptions of the social order, these legal and institutional developments of social welfare that occurred between 1840 and 1867 precipitated the largest growth in any pre-Confederation government department in terms of both personnel and capital expenditure. This reformation in the Upper Canadian state also contributed to a form of cultural revolution. The colonial response to crime and insanity in the era saw not only the introduction of "rationalized" governance in the form of institutional structures, laws, and bureaucratic procedures, but also "non-rationalized" governance, i.e., the introduction of a new moral code that governed the public regulation of criminals and the insane. The state increasingly abandoned a system premised on providential design embodied in long standing laws and institutions and sought instead to fine-tune the rule of secular law. In specific situations, this meant implementing statutes and institutional rules and regulations more equitably and impartially. 101 notes