A Precarious Place: Housing Specialized Court Clients

• In Event: Improving Offender Outcomes in Correctional Populations 3

Abstract

Specialized courts (a.k.a. treatment/problem-solving/ community /wellness courts) - are designed to address the multiple inter-connected issues related to a person’s offending (ex: poverty, addiction, trauma, mental health and homelessness). Forging key partnerships, court officials collaborate with social welfare and treatment agencies to support intensive case management, programming and residential supervision. This study uses a multi-method approach to analyze specialized courts across Canada; for this paper, we rely on data from six sites; four drug treatment courts and two wellness/community courts. Focusing on the implications of partnerships between courts and housing providers, we highlight how the latter contribute to surveillance, risk assessment, therapeutic intervention and legal/correctional practices. We argue that new practices are effectively changing the boundaries of punishment and producing several unintended consequences regarding (1) the regulation of space, housing and mobility (2) the blurring of privacy rights and (3) the production of further social, economic and legal marginality. With this analysis, we show how specialized courts understand housing issues and how social welfare needs become understood and managed within criminal justice.

Authors

• Marianne Quirouette, University of Toronto

• Kelly Hannah-Moffat, University of Toronto

• Paula Maurutto, University of Toronto