MOVING FROM “OFFENDERS” TO PARTNERS: Reflections on the potential for courts as co-designed institutions

Abstract

The court system has traditionally been conceptualised through the prism of legal practitioners’ expertise, with the experiences of those appearing before the courts being relegated to the status of “clients”, “defendants”, “appellants”, “offenders”, and so on. One notable exception to this has been the evolution of the therapeutic jurisprudence and solution-focused courts movements, which seek to involve defendants as a more agentic party in addressing the issues that underpin their justice involvement, especially in the context of drug and mental health courts. However, this model is still predicated on a paradigm that empowers the presiding judicial officer to make relevant decisions, including as to incarceration, about the person appearing before them. In this chapter, we explore the ways in which the court system could move to a more expansive, co-designed model, in which people with lived experience of the justice system can play a more central role in shaping the system to be more reflective of and responsive to their needs. The chapter draws on research on intersectionality and trauma-informed and rights-based practice, as well as our personal and professional experiences. In particular, we use case studies, including being sentenced and working with people appearing before the courts, to highlight the potential for judicial officers and other key court professionals to engage with people with lived experience of the justice system as partners, to redesign court systems to be more effective and improve the lives of those who appear before and work in them. Show more