Defence lawyers working in lower criminal courts are increasingly invited to be 'holistic' and to consider a range of options including specialized therapeutic justice programs like drug treatment courts (Van Cleve 2012). While criminal justice system is adjudicative by design, in practice, marginalized accused are often processed under managerial (Resnik 1982; Kohler-Haussmann 2013, 2014) or therapeutic (Wexler & Winnick 1996) models of justice. For the defence, this raises new ethical and practical challenges and questions. Scholars have been critical of specialized courts, showing how they circumvent the principles of presumption of innocence (Hannah-Moffat and Maurutto 2012), imposing onerous conditions and surveillance for participants (Moore and Lyons 2007; Moore 2014), often lacking the resources required to support participants long term (Quirouette et al 2016). What is not known however, is how criminal defence lawyers navigate this setting, advising clients or participating in drug treatment court (DTC) programs. Our paper examines this very question, drawing primarily from qualitative interviews with defence working in private practice and with legal aid, in two Canadian urban centers (n=102). We report on what participants said about their experiences, impressions, and strategies. Based on our thematic analysis, we present 3 key themes (1) when and why DTC can be desirable, (2) when and why DTC is undesirable, and (3) practices outside DTC's borrow from the form and logic. We present these findings and discuss their relevance, raising questions about access to health and social support resources, about interdisciplinary interventions and about the ways in which people are criminalized rather than helped.

Both in the US and in Canada, research has shown how access to justice is especially complicated for marginalized individuals in rural or remote areas. Yet, little is known about how criminal defense lawyers navigate supporting disadvantaged clients outside urban centers. In our study, we draw from 145 in-depth interviews documenting the perspectives and practices of criminal defense lawyers in urban and non-urban regions of eastern Canada. Focusing primarily on 40 participants working in rural and northern courts, we identify three key themes, related to their work representing marginalized clients. First, we report on how participants experience unique challenges related to geographic remoteness, delayed court processes and local resources gaps. Second, we document strategies they use to navigate this environment and help accused secure a better outcome: going above and beyond their formal duties, taking on extreme amounts of travelling and making use of technology. Third, we describe, and analyze, how they talk about working with other legal actors that populate court communities, like prosecutors and judges. We discuss the relevance of our findings in light of recent debates about expanding therapeutic justice, improving access to legal aid supports and community resources, and addressing the over representation of indigenous people in courts and corrections.

Research on the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction has grown exponentially in the past years. However, the overwhelming focus has been on the offenders' experience of such consequences, the impact they have on social reentry pathways and different criminal record expungement initiatives. While a few authors have shown an interest in the perceptions and practices of criminal justice actors, questions persist about the effects expanding collateral consequences have had on the criminal defense lawyers' duty to provide effective legal assistance to their clients. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 65 criminal defense lawyers and engaging with scholarship on privilege and the reproduction of inequality by the criminal justice system, the current study explores the ways criminal defense lawyers with different levels of privilege consider the collateral consequences of a conviction for their disadvantaged clients. The findings suggest that the imposition on lawyers of the duty to inform defendants of the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction as part of their right to effective legal assistance has exacerbated the privilege imbalance between private practice and legal aid lawyers. The study contributes to a better understanding of the ways collateral consequences of criminal convictions (re)produce inequality within the criminal justice system and beyond.

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It is widely recognized that people experiencing homelessness are controlled, excluded and (over)criminalized, in Canada and elsewhere (Gaetz 2013; Bellot et al. 2021). Moreover, they face several obstacles when they find themselves in court, particularly in connexion with the (lack of) presumption of innocence and access to justice (Bernheim 2019); conditions of release (Sylvestre, et al, 2020) as well as the therapeutic requirements and the feeling of procedural injustice (Sylvestre et al 2011; Roy et al 2022). At the same time, ‘support’ and adaptability programs (ex. PAJ-IC) and certain case law (Matte v. R. 2020; R. v. Zora, 2020) are reshaping the legal relevance of homelessness. In many of these circumstances, defense lawyers play an important role. Their perceptions and practices are important to document and understand, especially in our current context, where social (e.g. housing, poverty) and legal (e.g. legal aid, court delays) crises are converging, and where the possibilities of negotiation, advocacy, socio-therapeutic intervention or argumentation for sentencing are changing rapidly. Our project includes semi structured interviews conducted with defence lawyers - in private practice and with legal aid - working in Montreal (N=50), in rural areas or in northern Quebec (N=15). In our paper, we describe and analyse when and how they (1) work with and represent unhoused clients (2) raise and value the legal significance of profiling practices suffered by this group and (3) perceive how other judicial actors recognize the importance of this profiling. We draw from literature focused on the role of the defence, practice management, court cultures, justice models, and the social and legal relevance of homelessness in the courts. Our analysis highlights challenges experienced by defence lawyers and their unhoused clients, and also maps out promising practices and calls for action.

Les avocat.e.s de la défense jouent un rôle important dans l'élaboration des pratiques des tribunaux de juridiction criminelle, surtout auprès des populations marginalisées. Au stade de la mise en liberté provisoire, les avocat.e.s de la défense sont en mesure d'avancer des arguments qui tiennent compte des effets des désavantages sociaux et systémiques. Considérant les préoccupations de la CSC dans l’arrêt Antic à l’égard du manque d’uniformité territoriale dans l’application des règles de droit relatives à la mise en liberté provisoire, nous proposons une analyse qualitative à partir d’entretiens auprès d’avocat.e.s de la défense pratiquant en zone urbaine en pratique privée et à l’aide juridique. À partir de deux études de cas – Montréal (n=50) et Toronto (n=50) – nous analyserons les impacts des décisions majeures de la Cour suprême (Gladue, Antic et Zora) sur les pratiques lors de la mise en liberté provisoire, et, corollairement, la prise en compte les facteurs sociaux et la marginalisation de leur clientèle à ce stade des procédures judiciaires. Notre présentation porte sur l’expérience, le point de vue et le travail des avocat.e.s de la défense qui représentent des accusés marginalisés au stade de la mise en liberté provisoire. Plus précisément, les pratiques et les stratégies utilisées par les avocat.e.s pour éviter la détention provisoire ou des conditions de mise en liberté restrictives avant le procès ou la condamnation de leur clientèle.

In recent years, we have been able to observe a marked interest in the development of specialized courts and therapeutic justice programs. These have multiplied in several cities – including Toronto and Montreal - and target various social issues, including mental health, homelessness and drug use. Although in certain contexts, these programs seem to show advantages (possibility of avoiding detention, accessing supports and psychosocial intervention), they are also criticized in the academic literature (presumption of innocence, punitive measure imposing therapy, blending of clinical and legal roles). Criminal Defence lawyers is urban centres are well positioned to have insights about specialized courts and how they are useful or not, for their marginalized clients. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with private practice and duty counsel criminal defence lawyers working in Montreal, Toronto, our article aims to identify and understand when and how lawyers talk about one type of specialized courts – Drug Treatment. More specifically, we focus on (1) appreciation; (2) criticism, and (3) alternative strategies. We draw our theoretical framework from the literature on therapeutic and managerial justice, court culture and on the role of criminal defence lawyers. We argue that despite the great differences between the different specialized courts, lawyers are often pushed to refer their clients to these programs, criticizing the fact that they make the criminalization of marginalized people invisible and reify problematic notions of individual responsibility prominent in corrections.

Defence lawyers play an important part in shaping narratives and emerging practices in lower criminal courts. Working with marginalized accused who experience homelessness, racism, mental health issues and barriers to accessing supports, lawyers collaborate with non-legal stakeholders to validate and guide diversion and ‘therapeutic justice’ or rehabilitative interventions. Increasingly, defence lawyers also make arguments that take into account social and systemic factors – and that reply on social science evidence and expertise. My research documents how criminal lawyers manage their practice and make legal arguments about the importance of social context and structural factors (e.g. colonial legacy, anti-black racism, lack of housing and substance use supports). Analyzing 80 semi structured interviews - with duty counsel, legal aid, and private lawyers - I map and analyze when and how they use structural factors and sociological evidence and arguments to challenge or shape conditions of release, court processes and case outcomes. I show that these arguments are especially important to study at the front end of the criminal justice system, where people are regulated and pre-punished via bail, as well as at sentencing, where more nuanced discussion of the social can be supported by contextualizing evidence. With this paper I expand understandings of social control and punishment and of managerial, therapeutic and rights-based justice models.

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People experiencing homelessness (PEH) are pressed to survive both in public spaces, where they face intense judicialization and criminalization, as well as in spaces of care, where they also experience punitive governance. Frontline service providers, in shelters, or conducting street outreach, regularly engage with security forces and the police. The social profiling and punitive control of PEH has been widely documented, yet little is known about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on key issues important to practitioners and their clients. Our paper reports on 43 semi-structured interviews conducted with Montreal practitioners, focusing on local themes such as COVID tickets, encampments, and increased security forces in shelters. Engaging with work on the punitive governance of homelessness and a criminology of crisis, we analyze how frontline workers face challenges while also pushing to adapt, innovate and resist punitive approaches. Our work can help clarify when and how pandemic-related laws, regulations, police practices, and agency rules impact practitioners and the people they work with. We contribute to a better understanding of the control, punishment and exclusion of PEH and of legal violence, while also focusing on community and frontline resilience.

Les personnes en situation d’itinérance (PSI) qui tentent de (sur)vivre dans les espaces publics sont confrontées à une criminalisation accrue qui se produit aussi dans les espaces de soins. Les intervenants de première ligne, dans les refuges ou dans la rue, doivent régulièrement collaborer avec la police. Les pratiques de profilage social et de contrôle punitif exercées ont été largement documentées, mais des lacunes subsistent quant aux impacts de la pandémie. En effet, la criminologie contemporaine s’est peu intéressée au concept de crise. Pourtant, nous traversons une intersection de crises en lien avec le logement, les surdoses, les violences policières et bien entendu la COVID-19. Ces moments peuvent être riches pour les chercheurs en sciences sociales, parce qu’ils dévoilent les hiérarchies et priorités sociales. Nous proposons de développer autour du cadre de crise en discutant du repli sur la police pendant la pandémie et des conséquences pour les personnes marginalisées. À l’aide d’entrevues semi-structurées menées à Montréal (n = 43) nous documentons des thèmes d’importance tels que les contraventions liées aux mesures sanitaires, les campements et les agents de sécurité dans les refuges. En nous basant sur la criminologie des crises ainsi que des études sur la gestion punitive de l'itinérance à Montréal, nous analysons les défis et les stratégies que les travailleurs de première ligne utilisent pour résister aux approches punitives. Notre étude aide donc à clarifier quelles sont les conséquences d’une gestion punitive de l’itinérance pour les praticiens et leurs clients, tout en proposant une réflexion sur les réponses des institutions pénales aux situations de crises. Nous contribuons à une meilleure compréhension du profilage social, de la violence légale, du contrôle et de l'exclusion des populations marginalisées, tout en portant une attention particulière à la résilience communautaire et à l'innovation des intervenants de première ligne.

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