Intensive Course: Criminal Law and Therapeutic Justice

Note: The add/drop date for this course is Monday, January 4 at 10:00 PM.

Course Location: Please see the "Intensive Course Schedule" under Schedules and Timetables (http://www.law.utoronto.ca/academic-programs/schedules).

Note: Attendance at intensive courses is mandatory for the duration of the course.

Punitive justice is one of the hallmarks of the carceral state. In the United States, penal control has become the primary social response to crime. Over the last few decades, however, competing notions of justice have emerged and been implemented within criminal legal systems, including procedural justice, therapeutically oriented justice, problem-solving justice, community-based justice, and restorative justice.

Using a comparative lens, this course introduces a range of therapeutic, restorative, and problem-solving models developed and implemented in criminal justice systems worldwide. We will examine the criminal justice system’s capacity to adopt non-punitive notions of justice in pursuit of goals that extend beyond its classic aims of crime control, social order, and retribution. These goals include enhancing the well-being of diverse stakeholders, empowering communities, restoring relationships between lawbreakers and victims, encouraging reconciliation, and supporting holistic rehabilitation. The course also confronts the tension between the criminal justice system’s traditional objectives and therapeutic-oriented aspirations. In particular, we will consider whether the criminal justice system is an appropriate domain for advancing therapeutic aims, given the risks of net-widening, stigmatization and its collateral consequences, erosion of due process protections, paternalism, and coercion, especially when therapeutic goals are pursued within a criminal legal regime shaped by racial and socioeconomic inequality.

Ultimately, students will develop an understanding of the multidimensional notion of justice in the criminal legal context. The course combines theoretical discussion with empirical on-the-ground research and includes experiential class activities, such as viewing and analyzing documentaries and videos, and working in small groups on hypothetical or illustrative cases. Some course materials address experiences of harm, victimization, and trauma.