Sick Justice: The Mental Health Epidemic Inside Canada’s Justice System
The workers we trust to deliver justice are in the grip of a mental health epidemic, and the consequences reach beyond the courthouse.
A robust justice system is the cornerstone of democracy. It protects us from harm, rehabilitates offenders, heals victims, resolves conflict peacefully, and shapes lasting social change. In a society marked by traumas from colonialism and the genocide of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, it is quite reassuring to know that our justice system plays a major healing role in Canada.
But does it? Almost half, 44.5 percent, of all public safety personnel suffer from at least one mental disorder, which is 4.5 times more than the general population. More than 80 percent of justice workers have experienced symptoms like nightmares, depression, insomnia and strained relationships due to repeated exposure to traumatic material. In reality, every single person working in the justice system either suffers from mental health issues or knows someone who does.
This raises a serious concern: the people we trust to deliver justice are in crisis, and a system run by people in crisis cannot guarantee the fairness and reconciliation it promises.
Research underlines this pattern. According to a 2019 survey and a 2019 study, almost half of all public safety personnel suffer from at least one mental disorder, including post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or vulnerability to alcohol use disorder. This is 4.5 times more than the general population. More than half, 54.6 percent, of all correctional workers report symptoms resembling at least one mental disorder, which is more than 5.4 times that of the general population.
According to the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), 80.2 percent of all justice workers (e.g. public safety personnel, librarians, clerical staff, case management officers, investigators) experienced worrying symptoms – such as nightmares, depression, an increase in alcohol and drug use, a decrease in physical health, among others – as a result of working with traumatic material. Many of them also suffered from desensitization, hyper-vigilance, mistrust or anxiety, and the list goes on. In other words, direct exposure to dangerous and traumatic events is the norm in the jobs of justice workers.
When they are not directly exposed to trauma, they can still be affected by “secondary trauma” – indirect traumatic exposure through pictures, videos, testimonies, etc. These justice workers suffer from symptoms such as hypervigilance, emotional outbursts, detachment or estrangement from others, and/or avoidance of thoughts or feelings. Lawyers and judges are typically exposed to these secondary traumas. Yet they do not receive trauma-specific training and do not learn how to manage their psychological and emotional responses to the traumas of their clients. In 2022, between half and two-thirds of Canadian lawyers were in psychological distress, a mental state shared by 72% of all articling students.
This is appalling. Victims of serious mental health conditions, many of whom require urgent care, are currently in charge of every level of a system that is vital to Canada.
The implications are serious. How can victims begin to heal when they must rely on police officers, lawyers and judges who struggle with emotional detachment, anxiety, and panic attacks? How can offenders successfully reintegrate into society when their correctional workers, their judges and their lawyers suffer from hyper-vigilance and emotional outbursts?
On top of that, the system, which should heal and advance reconciliation for Canadian society, oppresses several communities. Indeed, many denounce the overrepresentation of Indigenous and Black people in prison. Indigenous adults are over-represented by ten times more in Canadian prisons, representing one out of three inmates compared to one out of 24 of the general population. And if colonialism and systemic racism are the root causes of this injustice, the fact that almost every single person a Black or Indigenous defendant encounters – from their arrest to trial – suffers from mental health issues only exacerbates racist biases and colonial prejudices that impact defendants in court.
Looking back at the promises of justice, that it protects us from harm, enables healing and reconciliation, and guarantees fairness, one can now understand how naive it is actually to believe them.
The reality is that justice workers suffer from complex mental health conditions. Our justice system is sick and is unable to guarantee a fair trial to the people it strips fundamental rights from. One of the foundational pillars of Canadian society is collapsing.
While solutions need to examine the root causes of this mental health epidemic, “first-aid” measures do exist, like presumptive coverage that removes the onus on the worker to prove that a work injury was the result of a work-related event. It means that justice workers diagnosed with a job-related trauma or mental disorder could get aid without needing to prove that their injury was related to their job. As of 2019, only two provinces cover all workers for all mental injuries, and this policy should be expanded across Canada.
Justice workers should be trained to respond to traumatic exposure. It is nonsensical that those who should protect us aren’t even trained to protect themselves. It is also urgent that the stigma around mental injuries in the workplace is removed, as it is a critical barrier to help.
These are only emergency response measures; it is necessary to address the systemic relationship the Canadian justice system has with mental health and colonialism if we really want to respond accordingly to the tremendous challenge we are facing. The whole system must be redesigned. Justice must become the social healer it was meant to be.