ABSTRACT
The history of sentencing reform in Canada is chequered - it has ranged from benign neglect to an integrated approach to sentencing and corrections 1
to a compartmentalised approach. With a relatively high incarceration rate of 123 per 100,000, reliance on imprisonment has been resistant to significant reform in this country. This is, at a minimum, perplexing given that Canada enjoys a generally peaceful and prosperous quality of life, and given the immediate proximity of the lessons learned from the United States' extreme reliance on incarceration as a solution to social problems. It can be argued that one of the reasons for Canada's failure to move fundamentally away from reliance on imprisonment has been its failure to consistently consider sentencing and corrections as part of a seamless, integrated criminal justice continuum.
