In terms of understanding who our clients are, legal aid clients are the most marginalized members of society. They're very poor and, again, they suffer from mental health and addiction issues.
Once they arrive in the courts, they are asked to provide sureties to the court. Sureties are generally upstanding members of the community who are going to ensure that the person comes back for subsequent court appearances. A lot of people who live on the streets or are very marginalized don't hang around with those types of people. They don't have what would be considered an acceptable surety for the courts, but this insistence on sureties still happens. There are also the conditions that get placed on some of these individuals. You hear them telling alcoholics that they shouldn't be drinking alcohol, and it just sets them up to fail. We see a huge amount of court time, police resources, and legal aid resources going into defending charges of breach of these conditions.
I think there needs to be a wholesale review of the bail system to ensure that for most non-violent offences there is not a need to incarcerate these individuals and that we reserve remand for the the most violent of offenders.