Dissertation (in progress):
“Department of Indian Affairs Legal Aid in Canada, 1880 to 1970.” University of Toronto, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies.
Journal articles:
J. Briggs. "Exemplary Punishment: T. R. L. MacInnes, the Department of Indian Affairs and Indigenous Executions, 1936-1952" Canadian Historical Review vol. 100, issue 3 (2019) doi: https://doi.org/10.3138/chr.2018-0044
Awarded best political history article by the Canadian Historical Association, and the Peter Oliver prize by the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History.
Abstract: This paper focuses on a series of death penalty recommendations written by Department of Indian Affairs Secretary T.R.L. MacInnes between 1936 and 1952, arguing that these recommendations contributed to the increase in Indigenous executions in the 1940s. Identifying MacInnes as a 'born bureaucrat' and member of the governing elite in a brief biographical sketch, professional and personal connections are drawn between MacInnes and Duncan Campbell Scott, arguing that MacInnes inherited Scott's legacy and extended his influence for another generation in the department. A discussion of the social and political context of the DIA in the 1940s describes changes in the department at the culmination of a long period of policy stability stretching from the early 19th century. Attention is paid to networks of knowledge production and centralization of control at DIA headquarters in Ottawa, and how the information collected from the field enabled McInnes to claim 'expertise' as an amateur criminologist. An analysis of themes in the recommendations reveals a reliance on tropes from the quasi-science of criminal anthropology to classify Indigenous peoples on a scale of criminal responsibility that mapped on to racial hierarchies and the DIA's 'civilization policy.’ The paper discusses how MacInnes constructed and deployed racializing narratives in response to the ‘problem’ of Indigenous peoples rejecting ‘whiteness,’ and explains how he positioned Indigenous executions as a being in the ‘interest of Indian administration.’
J. Briggs. 2020. "Mercy redux: a genealogy of special consideration of Indigenous circumstances at sentencing in Canada, from Indian Agents to Gladue and Ipeelee" in Studies in Law, Politics and Society Vol. 83, ed. Austin Sarat, 57-97. doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720200000083003
Abstract: This paper provides a genealogy of the Gladue-Ipeelee principle of special consideration of Indigenous circumstances at sentencing. The principle is codified in the 1996 statutory requirement that “all available sanctions other than imprisonment… should be considered for all offenders, with particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders” (s. 718.2e of the Criminal Code of Canada). Using the Foucaultian genealogy method to produce a ‘history of the present,’ this paper eschews normative questions of how s. 718.2e has ‘failed’ to reduce Indigenous overincarceration to instead focus on how practices of ‘special consideration’ reproduce settler-state paternalism. The paper addresses three key components of the Gladue-Ipeelee principle: the collection of circumstances information, the characterization of those circumstances, and finally their consideration at sentencing. Part one focuses on questions of legitimacy and authority, and explicates how authority to produce Indigenous circumstances knowledge was transferred from the Department of Indian Affairs to Indigenous Courtworkers organizations in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Part two identifies how authority shapes problematization by examining the characterization of Indigenous circumstances in the two eras, finding that present-day Gladue reports articulate an Indigenous history and critique of colonialism as the root cause of Indigenous criminalization, whereas DIA reports prior to 1970 generally characterized this criminalization as a ‘failure to assimilate.’ Part three focuses on the structural reproduction of power relations by exploring historical continuities in judicial and executive-branch consideration of Indigenous circumstances, suggesting that the Gladue-Ipeelee principle reinscribes a colonial ‘mercy’ framework of diminished responsibility. I discuss how the principle operates in the shadow of Indigenous over-incarceration as a form of state ‘recognition’ and a technique of governance to encourage Indigenous participation in the settler justice system, and suggest that the Gladue-Ipeelee principle produces a governing effect that reinforces settler-state authority by recirculating colonial practices and discourses of settler superiority.
Other publications:
Toronto Star, Op Ed, April 2, 2016: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/04/03/shameful-anniversary-should-spur-action-on-aboriginal-justice-crisis.html
The University as Urban Developer: A Research Report (co-authored with Prof. Mariana Valverde): http://criminology.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-university-as-developer-nov-2015-1.pdf
“Department of Indian Affairs Legal Aid in Canada, 1880 to 1970.” University of Toronto, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies.
Journal articles:
J. Briggs. "Exemplary Punishment: T. R. L. MacInnes, the Department of Indian Affairs and Indigenous Executions, 1936-1952" Canadian Historical Review vol. 100, issue 3 (2019) doi: https://doi.org/10.3138/chr.2018-0044
Awarded best political history article by the Canadian Historical Association, and the Peter Oliver prize by the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History.
Abstract: This paper focuses on a series of death penalty recommendations written by Department of Indian Affairs Secretary T.R.L. MacInnes between 1936 and 1952, arguing that these recommendations contributed to the increase in Indigenous executions in the 1940s. Identifying MacInnes as a 'born bureaucrat' and member of the governing elite in a brief biographical sketch, professional and personal connections are drawn between MacInnes and Duncan Campbell Scott, arguing that MacInnes inherited Scott's legacy and extended his influence for another generation in the department. A discussion of the social and political context of the DIA in the 1940s describes changes in the department at the culmination of a long period of policy stability stretching from the early 19th century. Attention is paid to networks of knowledge production and centralization of control at DIA headquarters in Ottawa, and how the information collected from the field enabled McInnes to claim 'expertise' as an amateur criminologist. An analysis of themes in the recommendations reveals a reliance on tropes from the quasi-science of criminal anthropology to classify Indigenous peoples on a scale of criminal responsibility that mapped on to racial hierarchies and the DIA's 'civilization policy.’ The paper discusses how MacInnes constructed and deployed racializing narratives in response to the ‘problem’ of Indigenous peoples rejecting ‘whiteness,’ and explains how he positioned Indigenous executions as a being in the ‘interest of Indian administration.’
J. Briggs. 2020. "Mercy redux: a genealogy of special consideration of Indigenous circumstances at sentencing in Canada, from Indian Agents to Gladue and Ipeelee" in Studies in Law, Politics and Society Vol. 83, ed. Austin Sarat, 57-97. doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720200000083003
Abstract: This paper provides a genealogy of the Gladue-Ipeelee principle of special consideration of Indigenous circumstances at sentencing. The principle is codified in the 1996 statutory requirement that “all available sanctions other than imprisonment… should be considered for all offenders, with particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders” (s. 718.2e of the Criminal Code of Canada). Using the Foucaultian genealogy method to produce a ‘history of the present,’ this paper eschews normative questions of how s. 718.2e has ‘failed’ to reduce Indigenous overincarceration to instead focus on how practices of ‘special consideration’ reproduce settler-state paternalism. The paper addresses three key components of the Gladue-Ipeelee principle: the collection of circumstances information, the characterization of those circumstances, and finally their consideration at sentencing. Part one focuses on questions of legitimacy and authority, and explicates how authority to produce Indigenous circumstances knowledge was transferred from the Department of Indian Affairs to Indigenous Courtworkers organizations in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Part two identifies how authority shapes problematization by examining the characterization of Indigenous circumstances in the two eras, finding that present-day Gladue reports articulate an Indigenous history and critique of colonialism as the root cause of Indigenous criminalization, whereas DIA reports prior to 1970 generally characterized this criminalization as a ‘failure to assimilate.’ Part three focuses on the structural reproduction of power relations by exploring historical continuities in judicial and executive-branch consideration of Indigenous circumstances, suggesting that the Gladue-Ipeelee principle reinscribes a colonial ‘mercy’ framework of diminished responsibility. I discuss how the principle operates in the shadow of Indigenous over-incarceration as a form of state ‘recognition’ and a technique of governance to encourage Indigenous participation in the settler justice system, and suggest that the Gladue-Ipeelee principle produces a governing effect that reinforces settler-state authority by recirculating colonial practices and discourses of settler superiority.
Other publications:
Toronto Star, Op Ed, April 2, 2016: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/04/03/shameful-anniversary-should-spur-action-on-aboriginal-justice-crisis.html
The University as Urban Developer: A Research Report (co-authored with Prof. Mariana Valverde): http://criminology.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-university-as-developer-nov-2015-1.pdf