We monitor the legal and policy frameworks that govern policing, the criminal justice process, and our prisons and jails to ensure that our civil liberties and the rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are respected. We also fight to illuminate and combat the discrimination – systemic and otherwise – that occurs at every stage of the criminal justice process and results in disproportionate harm to many historically disadvantaged communities, including Black and other racialized communities, Indigenous persons, those experiencing homelessness, people living with mental illness or addictions, migrants, and the LGBTQ2+ community.
The criminal justice system wields some of the state’s most coercive powers. Police are granted powers stop, question, search, harm, and even kill, if necessary. Judges determine guilt and innocence. Prisons deprive people of their most basic liberties. CCLA’s criminal justice program works to ensure that these incredible powers are used proportionately, fairly, and only when absolutely necessary.
Our Recent Cases and Reports
Learn more about our major ongoing litigation, research, and advocacy in the area of Criminal Justice.
Strip Searches in Ontario Prisons
Ontario's law gives provincial prisons carte blanche to strip search any prisoner, at any time, for no reason. We believe the law is unconstitutional.
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Privacy During COVID
Providing personal health information directly to law enforcement is an extraordinary invasion of privacy. There is a real risk that using this database will create a false sense of security when first responders are interacting with individuals who have not been flagged, thus serving to create rather than mitigate danger. If having this information is not strictly necessary to respond to the pandemic, then sharing it is not legal.
Racial Profiling
Canadian police detain thousands of racialized persons in suspicionless roadside stops each year. These police powers enable racial profiling and we believe they are unconstitutional.
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Fighting Strip Searches
In 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada called strip searches “one of the most extreme exercises of police power” and “inherently humiliating and degrading”. So why has Canada’s federal prison system carried out hundreds of thousands of unnecessary strip searches since then? These are not trivial intrusions. Canadians serving sentences are forced to undergo highly invasive searches in low-risk situations, such as leaving a secure area, or even upon release from prison. These searches can inflict severe psychological trauma, particularly for those with a history of being abused. We’re asking the federal government to end these harmful practices.
COVID & Enforcement Report
CCLA and PPMP Release New Report Examining Covid-19 Policing in the Second Wave, which examines the use of coercive fines and law enforcement to respond to a public health crisis.
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Protecting Civil Liberties in Thunder Bay
CCLA and our partners fought to have Thunder Bay’s Medical Officer of Health rescind her February 8th Class Order targeting individuals released from Thunder Bay District Jail. Detention outside of the rule of law is a clear and deeply concerning violation of constitutional rights. An emergency is a perilous time for civil liberties. Emergency powers are extensive – but they are limited – limited by law and by the Canadian constitution.
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Detasking Toronto Police Report
CCLA Partners on Report, entitled Rethinking Community Safety – A Step Forward For Toronto, urging City of Toronto to shift resources and responsibilities away from the police and towards alternative crisis response and social support mechanisms.
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