Michelle Bertrand
Title: Associate Professor - Graduate Studies Chair
Phone: 204.988.7503
Office: 3C48
Building: Centennial Hall
Email: m.bertrand@uwinnipeg.ca
Degrees:
MA Queen's University
PhD Queen's University
Biography:
Michelle Bertrand completed her M.A. and Ph.D. at Queen’s University in the Social-Personality Psychology program. As a graduate student, she served as a volunteer tutor in the Prison Literacy Initiative run through Frontier College and worked as a research assistant in the Regional Treatment Centre located in Kingston Penitentiary. Prior to joining the Criminal Justice Department at the University of Winnipeg, Dr. Bertrand worked for several months in Ottawa as a Research Officer for the Correctional Service of Canada.
Courses:
Current:
CJ-3470 Forensic Psychology
CJ-4654/GCJ-7654 Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Preventing Wrongful Convictions
GCJ-7117 Seminar in Research Design
Previous:
CJ-1101 Introduction to Criminal Justice
CJ-2101 Criminal Justice Research Methods
In addition to course-related teaching, Dr. Bertrand also supervises Criminal Justice Honours and M.A. student theses.
Research Interests:
Dr. Bertrand’s research interests are in the general area of Psychology and Law, with specific interests in Canadian juries and eyewitness memory.
In her jury-related work, Dr. Bertrand looks at issues related to jury representativeness and comprehension of judicial charges. She is a co-investigator on an interdisciplinary SSHRC Insight Grant (2018 – 2023) investigating how well jury-eligible Canadians understand criminal charges and instructions that judges give to juries, as well as methods to improve juror understanding.
Dr. Bertrand is also the primary investigator on an interdisciplinary SSHRC Insight Grant (2019 – 2024) studying jury representativeness. Within this area, she studies how the public conceive of and understand representativeness both generally and as it pertains to persons with disabilities, and how such perceptions compare to existing case law and legislation.
Her current research interests in eyewitness memory focus mainly on biases in police lineups, but also include methodological issues in lineup construction and administration as well as policy issues regarding lineups.
Publications:
Selected Recent Publications
Bertrand, M. I., Lindsay, R.C.L., Mansour, J. K., Beaudry, J. L., Kalmet, N., & Melsom, E. I. (2018). Examining How Lineup Practices of Canadian and U.S. Police Officers Adhere to Their National Best Practice Recommendations. Manitoba Law Journal: Second Special Volume on Current Issues in Criminal Law, 41, 1 – 47. Link: http://themanitobalawjournal.com/robson-crim/
Bertrand, M. I., & Jochelson, R. (2018). Mock-jurors’ understanding of Canadian judicial instructions (is not very good). The Criminal Law Quarterly, 68, 136 – 160.
Lindsay, R.C.L., Bertrand, M. I., & Smith, A. M. (2017). The importance of knowing how a person became a suspect in a lineup: Multiple eyewitness identification procedures increase the risk of wrongful conviction. Manitoba Law Journal: Special Volume on Current Issues in Criminal Law, 40, 53 – 83. Link: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/bab59a_02d6bf7925fd431393e850dd0a2802fb.pdf
Mansour, J. K., Beaudry, J. L., Kalmet, N., Bertrand, M. I., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (2017). Evaluating lineup fairness: Variations across methods and measures. Law and Human Behavior, 41, 103 – 115. doi: 10.1037/lhb0000203
Bertrand, M. I., Jochelson, R., & Menzie, L. (2017). The jury representativeness guarantee in Canada: The curious case of disability and justice-making. The Journal of Ethics in Mental Health Special Issue. Legal Responses to Mental Health/Mental Disability: Courts, Special Courts and Inter-disciplinary Tribunals, 10, 1 – 23. Link: https://www.jemh.ca/issues/v9/documents/JEMH%20article%20law%20theme%201%20final.pdf
Jochelson, R., Bertrand, M. I., Lindsay, R. C. L., Smith, A. M., Ventola, M., & Kalmet, N. (2014). Revisiting representativeness in the Manitoban Criminal Jury. Manitoba Law Journal: Underneath the Golden Boy, 37, 365 – 398. Link: http://umanitoba.ca/centres/mipr/media/Revisiting_Representativeness.pdf