Reintegration Under Community Supervision - Experiences and Perceptions of People Involved in the Quebec Criminal Justice System

• In Event: Community Supervision Policy and Practice in Reentry

Abstract

In Quebec, community supervision measures are the sentences most frequently used by the courts. These measures subject convicted offenders to conditions designed to reintegrate them into society. Although justified by the objective of social reintegration in sentencing, these mechanisms sometimes tend to obstruct rather than promote the reintegration process. Indeed, most of the offences dealt with by the courts are breaches of probation orders, which strengthen the process of social exclusion of people in the justice system. Research suggests that it is the conditions themselves that are often at the origin of these breaches, through their heaviness, their inadequacy to the offenders' profiles.
This presentation focuses on the reintegration process of people under community supervision. Based on interviews with 20 people on community supervision in Quebec, the conference aims to describe their experiences and perceptions of their correctional process, as well as the role of conditions in their social reintegration process. The results focus on their experience of the conditions associated with their sentence, the obstacles they faced (both individual and structural), their monitoring relationship with correctional workers, and their social reintegration trajectories.

Authors

• Elsa Euvrard, University Laval

• Corinne Chouinard, University Laval