Personal profile
About
Professor Parkes joined the Allard School of Law in July 2016. She was a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba from 2001 to 2016 where she served a term as Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies) from 2013-2106. She has also been a visiting researcher at the University of Woollongong and the University of Sydney. She was Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law from 2009-2013 and President of the Canadian Law & Society Association from 2007-2010.
Professor Parkes' scholarly work examines the challenges and possibilities of addressing societal injustices through rights claims, with a focus on the criminal justice, corrections, and workplace contexts. The lens she brings to this work is feminist, intersectional, and socio-legal. Professors Parkes takes a particular interest in the incarceration of women, the limits of prison reform, and the framing and adjudicating of prisoners’ rights claims.
With funding from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Professor Parkes has examined mechanisms for oversight and accountability of imprisonment in Canada and she is collaborating on a new SSHRC-funded research partnership to develop participatory-action research methods for prison research that bring academics, former prisoners, and community agencies together to systematically collect and document prisoner experiences. In 2015 she guest edited a special volume of the Canadian Journal of Human Rights on solitary confinement and human rights.
Before beginning her academic career, Professor Parkes worked as a law clerk to justices of the BC Supreme Court (1997-1998) and practiced with the litigation group at Gowlings LLP in Toronto (1998-2000). She maintains strong connections with the bench and bar, welcoming opportunities to present at judicial education conferences and at continuing professional development workshops for the practicing bar.
Professor Parkes supervises graduate students in the fields of sentencing, penal policy, and the criminalization of women.
Professional Affiliations
- Centre for Feminist Legal Studies
Disciplines
- Law
- Criminal Law
- Human Rights Law
- Public Law and Legal Theory
- Constitutional Law
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“17 Going on 23”: Sentencing Young People to Life in Canada
Parkes, D., Jan 2025, In: Dalhousie Law Journal. 48, 1, p. 403-434 32 p.Research output: Article › peer-review
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R v. Sharma: Reckoning with Destabilizing Truths in Constitutional Equality Adjudication
Parkes, D. & Lawrence, S., 2023, In: Supreme Court Law Review (2nd). 115, p. 139-169Research output: Article › peer-review
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The Evolution of Life Sentences For Second-Degree Murder: Parole Ineligibility and Time Spent in Prison
Parkes, D., Sprott, J. & Grant, I., May 2 2022, In: Canadian Bar Review. 100, 1, p. 66-94Research output: Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile -
Starting with life: Murder sentencing and feminist prison abolitionist praxis
Parkes, D., Jul 30 2021, Building Abolition: Decarceration and Social Justice. Taylor and Francis, p. 151-164 14 p.Research output: Chapter
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The Meaning of Life: A Study of the Use of Parole Ineligibility for Murder Sentencing
Grant, I., Choi, C. & Parkes, D., 2020, In: Ottawa Law Review. 52, 1, p. 133-176Research output: Article › peer-review
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