Ava Mahmood Pour Tehrani
Ava Mahmood Pour Tehrani
My research focuses on how parole requirements impact the quality of life for parolees in Ontario through a critical human rights assessment. The research aims to uncover how the restrictions of fundamental human rights on parolees, via their institutionally imposed conditions, have hindered the quality of life of those who are attempting to reenter society and detail how this has incentivized reoffending. This research is a product of my personal experience in the parole field and my personal experience will be detailed throughout the paper. Through a criminological, human rights, and sociological lens, the research will uncover literature on the politics of parole, the pains of the criminal justice system, and instances of the processes of recidivism, to critique the parole system’s mandate and its inability to counter desistence in a rehabilitative manner. These theoretical analyses will be supplemented with literature on critical human rights and quality of life to detail the importance of including human rights logic in the rehabilitation process. A cross-examination of The Canadian Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms of 1981 with the Corrections and Conditional Release Act of 1992 will be included within the research to further situate the literature and place the current parole mandate within the Charter’s purview to detail gaps in the reintegration process through the scope of quality of life and critical human rights. The work of supervisor Dr. Livy Visano and reader Dr. Amanda Glasbeek will aid in structuring the proposed research and grounding it within the socio-legal studies framework.
Kayla Forjan
I am interested in investigating the ways in which specific policies, practices and legislations justify and exacerbate the hyper-surveillance of those designated as disabled in Ontario, and the related rationale that enables the perpetuation of systems of social control. As such, I am focusing my doctoral research on The Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and the experience of ODSP recipients attempting to navigate the bureaucratic regulations in place intended to safeguard asset eligibility. Combining my knowledge of surveillance studies with my research of disability literature, I propose to employ a mixed-method research methodology involving legal analysis, focus groups and/or semi-structured interviews related to the ways in which disabled ODSP recipients experience surveillance.
Kayla Forjan
Claire Linley
Claire Linley
Canada has one of the most robust immigration detention systems in the world controlled and protected by official legislation and multi-layered policy directives. As such, Canada's immigration detention system has seen a variety of reforms over the past two decades. Most notably, the National Immigration Detention Framework, implemented in 2016 which introduced the Alternatives to Immigration Detention Program controlled by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). The program seeks to create more accessible and additional alternatives to detention (ATDs) such as conditional plans of release from detention facilities for immigrant detainees, however such alternatives use tactics of increased surveillance and control. The purpose of my research is to examine: to what extent does the Canada Border Services Agency's Alternatives to immigration detention program function to facilitate the deportation of immigration detainees? Specifically examining the following questions: (1) the implementation and operation of the Alternative to Immigration Detention Program (ATIDP), (2) whether the central role of the CBSA undermines the authority of the Immigration and Refugee Board, and lastly, (3) what impact the program has on the lives of immigrants enrolled in the program. This research will serve to fill an existing knowledge gap pertaining to Alternatives to Immigration Detention in Canada. It is my hope that the production of this research will be used to justify a public review of the Alternatives to Immigration Detention Program and inform future recommendations and improvements of the program.
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