Terrorism Sentencing Decisions in Canada Since 2001: Shifting Away From the Fundamental Principle and Towards Cognitive Biases
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In this paper, we take a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary look at terrorism sentencing decisions over a 17-year period, between September 2001 when the ATA was first conceived of and September 2018. In so doing, we first offer an empirical analysis of the sentences for all terrorism offences to date, including the total number of sentences, conviction rates, charges, demographics associated with the accused and other factors. We then engage in a qualitative assessment of the sentencing decisions to date. In particular, we ask why the high sentences and one hundred percent incarceration rate for those convicted, and why even those who have pled guilty have received similar treatment – and sentences – as compared to those that were found guilty after full trials. We test the judicial reasons for sentencing in terrorism cases against the usual logic that the courts follow when applying the fundamental principle of sentencing in Canada, as elaborated by both section 718 of the Criminal Code and Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence. We also investigate the role that section 718.2(a)(v) of the Criminal Code has had on terrorism sentences in Canada and whether it might help to explain the empirical and qualitative shifts we are seeing in terrorism sentencing decisions. Finally, we ask whether there is anything inherent to the legislative and judicial framing of terrorism as a crime, and therefore in its sentencing, that might explain the unique nature of terrorism sentences. In the final section of this paper, we posit a cognitive behavioural theory that, when viewed in light of the way sentencing decisions are framed by the judiciary and the Criminal Code, can help explain the sentences to date and even make them seem preordained. We find that despite the Supreme Court of Canada’s detailed decision in R v Khawaja in 2012, which affirmed that the fundamental and general principles of sentencing in Canada continue to apply to terrorism offences as they do elsewhere, the reasoning found in Canadian terrorism sentencing decisions does not look much like that which obtains in sentencing decisions for any other crime. In particular, in terrorism sentencing decisions, the courts have offered a unique approach to balancing the seriousness of the crime with the moral culpability of the offender as the fundamental principle of sentencing requires. The result is one that prioritizes long term incarceration, a repeated focus on the seriousness of terrorism in general, and a diminution of the individual. In so doing, the process is framed so as to be uniquely susceptible to cognitive biases that can serve to inflate the sentencing ranges. In addition, fears of terrorism are amplified as a persistent and uniquely deadly threat, which can in turn have a disproportionality negative impact on young and minority accused, who are then seen as the most affected by the increased presence of cognitive biases in terrorism sentencing.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.008 | 0.030 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.011 | 0.006 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".