Social Policy in Ontario

Typically, they are charged with minor crimes and released on bail, on the condition they not drink or do drugs and that they reside at a certain address.

But they are addicts, or have mental health issues, or are homeless — and soon find themselves back in the court system for violating those conditions, not committing another crime. The cycle begins, and it’s one they can’t get out of.

In such cases, the court system does not always do justice to those who get caught up in it — something Ontario is now working to address through a plan for innovative centres that include both legal and social services under one roof.

“For some time, I’ve been concerned about how our criminal justice system works in silos,” Attorney General Yasir Naqvi said in an interview. “It deals with criminal behaviour. It doesn’t really look at homelessness, it doesn’t really look at poverty, it doesn’t really look at mental health or addiction. There’s a lack of that holistic approach.

“How can we start looking at the totality of an individual and see some of the underlying factors that may be causing them to engage in criminal behaviour?” said Naqvi, a lawyer who is also a former corrections minister.

Those questions — and a move provincially to promote community hubs — led to a look at the concept of Community Justice Centres. That in turn sparked plans for three in the province: in London, Kenora and Toronto’s Moss Park neighbourhood.

The provincial budget recently earmarked funds for the initial phases — $5.6 million this year, $4.6 million in 2019-2020 and $3.7 million in 2020-2021. More funding will come as plans are formalized.

No two justice centres are alike, as each is created by community members based on extensive local consultations, catering to specific identified needs.

In Moss Park, the issues are harm reduction, mental health and housing. In Kenora, it’s an approach that needs to includes Indigenous education and restorative justice practices to address the disproportionate number of Indigenous youth in the system, many coming from fly-in communities. (Satellite hubs are to being looked at for Sioux Lookout and Timmins.)

In London, youth 18 to 25 years old, representing one-third of all charges in the city, need mental health, substance abuse and employment support.

Community Justice Centres, while almost unheard of in Canada, operate in a number of other countries, notably the two-decade-old Red Hook centre in Brooklyn, N.Y. That centre is housed in a former school and has a courtroom, housing services, addiction services, youth programming, among other supports.

When an accused appears before a judge, an intake officer initially provides the judge with an update, said Naqvi, who visited the Brooklyn site last year, with status updates including treatment appointments the accused attended or missed.

“The lawyers actually hardly spoke in that,” Naqvi said. “It wasn’t adversarial at all, it was more of a conversation with the judge.

“And this was the most remarkable thing — the judge spoke directly to the accused, and he spoke directly to the accused as a person,” putting an arm around a shoulder, leaning away from the court microphone to ask how children are doing, reminding the accused that taking part in addiction treatment makes for a good parent.

“That was the essence,” Naqvi stressed. “It was focused on human beings … and the flaws they may have, and have to try to reconcile.”

In Toronto, it could mean that instead of being released from court and told to hop on public transit to access treatment, they just walk down the hall, said Karen Pitre, a special adviser to the premier regarding community hubs.

In the present model, “the judge will say, ‘You need a treatment plan and can you just get on the streetcar and go down the street to CAMH?’ And people walk out the door and they are gone.”

Instead, at a justice centre, the “accused actually has access to a social worker, someone they can point to, and say, ‘You need to go talk to that person who is sitting at the back of the courtroom and they are going to help you put together a plan to deal with all the issues you are facing.’ ”

Consultations in the three pilot cities continue, and determining the types of offences that should be dealt with is going to take some work, she said. With that and potential locations to sort out, there’s no set timeline to get them open.

Such a system doesn’t work for serious crimes. Even though the centres deal with lesser crimes, it’s not “hug-a-thug,” as critics may charge.

“They are still held accountable for the criminal offences they’ve committed,” said London police Superintendent Bill Chantler, who was involved in the justice centre working group there.

“I believe it is the correct approach and the most appropriate approach to addressing the issue of young adults becoming entangled in the justice system,” he said. He said he hopes the approach helps decrease crime and recidivism rates as it has in Red Hook.

A Community Justice Centre would not only help address the underlying problems, he said, but also expedite charges, given London youth spend a disproportionate amount of time incarcerated.

Sioux Lookout Mayor Doug Lawrance said about 85 per cent of the inmates in the district jail in Kenora are Indigenous and most of them from north of his municipality.

They are not hardened criminals, he explained, but people who commit crimes because of drug or alcohol addiction. What’s needed is a detox centre, a safe injection site and “housing, housing, housing,” he said.

“We need changes in the justice system so people are not (criminalized) but triaged and sent to the type of care that they need.”

Such centres are open to the broader community to access services, which can include employment help, services for new immigrants or adult literacy classes.

Down the road, judging the centres’ success will not simply be based around recidivism rates, Naqvi said.

“Our metrics are going to be much broader metrics than just whether you commit a criminal offence or not,” he said.

“We want to see that they are actually getting better housing, getting better health care access, and that all of those things are having an impact in that you don’t have to engage in criminal behaviour.”

https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/04/21/community-justice-hubs-to-offer-addiction-mental-health-support-under-same-roof-as-courts.html