Appropriate for university Criminal Justice courses where instructors find the existing texts too basic or prescriptive, and prefer a debate-oriented approach that generates more student discussion in seminars. Also appropriate for university colleges who might also prefer this approach as a change from more traditional ways of presenting the material.

Debates in Canadian Criminology looks at ten key criminal justice questions, and presents "for-and-against" papers dealing with each question. Each chapter is prefaced with a 700-1,000 word introduction putting the debate in context, and followed by a summary and a list of references for further reading. The papers are drawn from both academic and journalistic sources, with an eye to their accessibility for first-year students.