Off Paper

The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from requiring a criminal defendant to pay “excessive bail” in order to get out of jail before trial. Nevertheless, nearly half a million people across the country are in pretrial detention.

The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from requiring a criminal defendant to pay “excessive bail” in order to get out of jail before trial. Nevertheless, nearly half a million people across the country are in pretrial detention.

Chronic substance use and mental health disorders are common problems for individuals in the criminal justice system. Alone or together, and sometimes in conjunction with other risk factors, these disorders can drive behavior that results in violation of supervision conditions or even in new criminal conduct.

Holistic defense is also called community-oriented defense, therapeutic defense, or holistic advocacy. Whatever the name, its purpose is to solve underlying social and environmental problems that may have contributed to an individual's involvement in crime. It does this by emphasizing teamwork, partnerships with other criminal justice stakeholders, and identification and mitigation of collateral consequences. By doing this, defense attorneys hope to improve public safety by helping clients avoid involvement in the criminal justice system and reducing recidivism. In this episode of Off Paper, federal defenders Kathy Nester (D. Utah) and Maureen Franco (W.D. Tex.), who have been at the forefront of this work in the federal system, talk about the role of the defender in building and sustaining a multi-stakeholder, district-wide reentry infrastructure and in developing and implementing collaborative, problem-solving courts.

This first episode of Off Paper is a conversation with Dr. Guy Bourgon, a clinical psychologist specializing in corrections and criminal justice, and the coleader for Canada's Strategic Training Initiative in Community Supervision (STICS). Dr. Bourgon is recognized for translating research into useful and practical concepts that enhance skills and techniques for promoting client engagement and facilitating prosocial change.