Prof. Myrna Dawson, with U of G’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, offered her thoughts to the Toronto Star on the sentencing of Toronto man Mohammed Shamji in the second-degree murder of his wife, Dr. Elana Fric-Shamji.

Dawson, who is the Canada Research Chair in Public Policy in Criminal Justice, and director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence, called the case a textbook example of a gender-based murder.

She questioned whether the proposed 14-year parole ineligibility period for Shamji was a fair sentence. She noted her research shows there remains an “intimacy discount” in the sentences handed out to intimate partners as compared to non-intimate killers.

Dawson studies trends in and social and legal responses to violence, particularly violence against women and femicide. She is the director of U of G’s Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability.