Un-True Crime

Mr. Roach makes a strong case on how Canada lags behind in taking wrongful convictions seriously and in doing anything tangible to protect people from them.

He demonstrates that the system incentivizes guilty pleas through a variety of means while defendants often have little access to a quality representation and information as well as limited defense options when faced with “experts”, which means if you're marginalized, you're likely to end up pleading guilty to something you haven't done in order not to risk the heavier sentence.

Sure the “criminal class” isn't the most sympathetic one and it's rarely glamorous to make any noise for it but we must not forget that it takes only an accident of fate for one to end up being part of it even if only through the imagination of law enforcement and the judicial system, so you should care because tomorrow it could easily be you in the accused seat. Mr. Roach makes sure to hammer this home with the use of several cases in which no crime was actually committed. Which brings us back to the aforementioned “experts”, throughout the book Roach often refers to a particular expert who was almost singlehandedly responsible for a number of wrongful convictions to ruinous consequences for the convicted individuals and their families. It was absolutely chilling to realize that said expert thought it was his job to make the prosecution's case look good more so than to present facts and that the situation was just allowed to play out for years and years.

If you enjoy picking apart Canadian exceptionalism and taking a good hard look at what Canada really is all about, you won't be disappointed with this one.

4.5/5 rounded up.

I received an eARC of this book from Simon & Schuster Canada through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.