Joan Barrett

Joan Barrett is a Deputy Director with the Crown Law Office – Criminal, Ministry of the Attorney General where she has practiced since 2001 after four years as an Assistant Crown Attorney. She has appeared at all levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada. She is the author of Balancing Charter Interests: Victims’ Rights and Third Party Remedies (Carswell, 2001), co-author of the text Mental Disorder in Canadian Criminal Law (Carswell, 2006) and is an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School where she teaches “Mental Illness and the Criminal Justice System.”  From April 2017 to February 2018 she was the Executive Lead on the Community Justice Centre initiative which used community consultations to develop the policy framework for a new innovative justice model for Ontario to respond to the overrepresentation of marginalized, racialized and Indigenous people in criminal justice system.