Crime and Punishment in Upper Canada provides genealogists and social historians with context and tools to understand the criminal justice system and locate sources on criminal activity and its consequences for the Upper Canada period (1791-1841) of Ontario's history.

Illustrative examples further aid researchers in this era of the province's past, which is notoriously difficult to investigate due to paucity of records and indexes. An entertaining, educational read, the book features chapters with detailed inventories of available records in federal, provincial, and local repositories; published transcripts and indexes; online transcripts and indices; and suggestions for additional reading.

Also included are engravings (jails and courthouses, public hangings, judges), maps (showing the boundaries of districts), charts (for statistics such as frequencies of different kinds of offences), and document examples (court minutes, jail registers, newspaper reports, et cetera), while case studies demonstrate the use and relevance of various records.