This is the bread-and-butter series of the Cadman fonds. It reveals his personal priority - the making of law, especially criminal, as it touches both criminal and victim. Many of the files deal with bills and the various stages of their preparation, along with reference and research material on them; many of them reflect his work on the House Justice Committee. Other files address other issues of signal importance to Cadman and the Reform / Alliance movement. Significant file clusters are as follows: "Corrections and Parole", "Drugs", "Gun Control" (almost 3 volumes), "Sex" (in a variety of sub-categories, such as, Sex, Sex Offender Registry and Solicitation and Prostitution), "Victims", "Young Offenders Act", "Sentencing", "Street Racing" and "Conditional Sentencing". The series closes with "Youth Justice", a bloc almost 5 volumes in extent.
The records obviously provide a prism into both Cadman and the political right. Several of Cadman's chief concerns were: the stressing of victims' rights (not only the rights of the accused); stricter sentencing for crime; and the issue of youth crime in all its manifestations (made real to him by the murder of his teenager son by other youths). Sex and drugs were avenues towards crime, and thus, in Cadman's mind, assumed significance as problems to address, as well as matters for which to punish
The researcher interested in Reform / Alliance will find these records informative in studying Cadman and the political right. But further, any researcher interested in the issues reflected in this series will find these blocs of material, so heavily laden with informational and resource material, more than useful to study.
