The Need for Limiting Mechanisms on Not Criminally Responsible Dispositions
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Accused persons in Canada who are found “not criminally responsible” (NCR) on account of mental disorder are excused from criminal liability, as they have no moral blameworthiness for their action leading to the criminal charge. However, persons found NCR are not acquitted. They are transferred to the jurisdiction of a provincial review board, where they remain under supervision and conditions unless or until they are found to not pose a significant threat to the safety of the public. NCR accused may be detained in hospital during their review board supervision, or face other deprivations of liberties. There is no maximum period that NCR accused may be under the jurisdiction of a review board. Accordingly, a person found NCR could be subject to deprivations of liberty for the rest of their lives, even if found NCR on a relatively minor offence. This can be a disincentive for accused persons considering the NCR verdict, particularly when they would face a finite, non-custodial or short custodial sentence on conviction. This thesis considers the need for limiting mechanisms on the duration of NCR dispositions. First, the options for proceeding through the criminal justice system that may be available to accused persons with mental disabilities are reviewed. The history of the NCR verdict and NCR dispositions is then considered, including legal and legislative changes that have culminated in the current disposition provisions. This is then contrasted with empirical studies regarding NCR dispositions and the impact of such dispositions on NCR accused. The contrast allows for a comparison of the “law-on-the-books” to the “law-in-action”. Emphasis is placed on the discrepancy between the stated goals of NCR dispositions, which are allegedly not punitive because NCR accused are not morally blameworthy, and the potential punitive effect of indefinite dispositions. This thesis asserts that additional limiting mechanisms are required on disposition provisions. Capping provisions are the central limiting mechanism analyzed and recommended. A mandatory "verdict inquiry” when an accused person applies for, or consents to, an NCR verdict is also recommended. The thesis concludes with proposed next steps and topics for further discussion.
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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 | 0.027 | 0.123 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.007 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.001 |
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".