‘The More You Do through This Program, the Better It’s Going to Look in Court’: Testing, Disciplining and Sorting Accused Pre-Trial through Bail Supervision Program

Abstract Bail Supervision Programs (BSPs) were created to supervise accused lacking the social or financial means to make bail. Although BSPs are used in many Western democracies, existing research primarily assesses whether BSPs mitigate administration of justice offences. Drawing on over 200 hours of informal observations and conversations at a BSP in Ontario, Canada, interviews with accused and bail supervisors and 212 client case files, I argue BSP is a social control tool used to engage marginalized accused and assess their capacity for self-governance prior to conviction. Expanding on Feeley’s (1979) and Kohler-Hausmann’s (2018) findings that the court process is punishment, BSP is used by courts to test, discipline and sort marginalized accused without first needing to secure a conviction.