| Summary: | ""This fascinating work takes us from a dramatic account of the public execution of Claude Ruel on July 1.1868 in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, to the double hanging of Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin in Toronto's Don Jail on December 11, 1962. Just as that jail had gradually evolved from an example of mid-Victorian penal innovation into a symbol of public indifference and cruel confinement, so this story had evolved along a similar path within the public's perception. What's most original is the focus upon treating this process as an institutional history---a rich approach and one certain to provoke debate."Bruce Bowden, Registrar at Trinity College, University of Toronto, and historian in Canadian public history" "It is easy to forget that the death penalty was not abolished in Canada until 1976 and that it was an entrenched aspect of our culture and criminal justice from the time of Confederation. The Practice of Execution in Canada is not about what led some to the gallows and others to escape it. It is about the taken-for-granted rituals and practices of execution, seen as a social institution." "Drawing on hundreds of fascinating case files. Ken Leyton-Brown shows that each phase of the practice of execution - from the trial to interment of the body - was constrained by law and tradition. But the institution was not rigid. As criticism and reform pushed executions out of the public eye. they were emptied of meaningful ritual and became more valnerable to criticism. Comprehensive and absorbing. this groundbreaking study is for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of contemporary debates on capital punishment."--Jacket
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