The canadian criminal code

The Evolution of the Canadian Criminal Code

The laws of the United States have been revised numerous times, and the Criminal Code of Canada is similar. The Criminal Code is a systematically arranged body of law dealing with crime. The code has been revised multiple times over the past century by the federal government to help accommodate the numerous laws that have been applied to Canadian citizens. The history of homicide in the Criminal Code has evolved from having no degrees of murder in 1892 to having three types of culpable homicide (Leyton). The Canadian Criminal Code has changed over the years to accommodate the needs of changing times, such as amendments for gun control and the elimination of the death penalty.

In 1892, the Criminal Code of Canada was established, copying much of the English 1878 bill. “The Canadian Criminal code which copied the English bill of 1878 has been revised numerous times to accommodate the needs of the Canadian citizens” (Monroe). At that time there was no distinguishing between different types of murder through degrees of severity, because the punishment for every type of murder was the death penalty, and manslaughter was a life sentence in prison (Designs).

In 1955, a major reform was carried out and the Canadian Criminal Code was reduced from 1100 sections to only 753. The president of the Law Reform Commission of Canada did this major reform and noted, "It is too complicated. It is too illogical. It is poorly organized. It is not comprehensive and it is too intrusive. We deserve a Criminal Code that is modern, simple, logical, coherent, comprehensive, organized, understandable and restrained" (“What ”). One of the advantages of the reform was the addition of a constitutional principle that no person was to be convicted of an offense unless it had been provided specifically for in a statute. Even though the reform brought many new changes, the Criminal Code was not fully revised because in 1961 there were other changes done to the Code. In this change, the code included degrees of murder and divided the murders into capital and non-capital murder. The punishment for capital murder was death, while non-capital murder was punishable by life in prison (Leyton).

Capital murder was categorize...

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...s well as other countries, Canada uses the lethal injection and the electric chair as methods of punishment, although the lethal injection is by far the most common. Indeed the laws for Canadian citizens have changed numerous times over the years to help them accommodate the changes in their nation.

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Geter, Peter. “ Murder of Crying baby was premeditated.” Daily Record. 23 June 2003: Page 1.

Leyton, Elliott. “ Homicide.” Canadian Encyclopedia. 1998 Ed.

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“What is first-degree murder?” World Wide Information Association. Online. Internet. 09 November 2003.