Drug Treatment Courts According to Criminal Defence Lawyers

Abstract Defence lawyers working in lower criminal courts are increasingly invited to consider a variety of holistic or alternative strategies like drug treatment courts (DTC). This raises new ethical and practical questions. Scholars have been critical, showing how specialized courts circumvent the principle of the presumption of innocence, impose onerous conditions and surveillance, and lack the resources required to support participants over the long term. What is not known, however, is how defence lawyers representing marginalized clients talk about and engage with DTC programs. Our paper examines this, drawing from interviews with defence counsel working in Toronto and Montreal (n=98). We describe and discuss when and why participants report being either more supportive or more critical of drug treatment courts, and how they borrow from therapeutic justice in their “regular” practice. Our discussion engages with questions about access to health and social support resources, about interdisciplinary interventions and the ways in which people are criminalized rather than helped.