Diversity in restorative justice: a research practicum report

Abstract

The research report focuses on the notion of restorative justice, which attempts to address the harm caused by the criminal acts, as well as underlying structural issues and issues of power and privilege. Restorative justice is fairly inclusive in terms of involving the victim, offender and the community. Restorative justice includes the ideas of dialogue and story-telling, which align with anti-oppressive approaches by giving people opportunity to voice their views and be involved in addressing crimes and conflicts, which can be empowering. Restorative justice also grapples with structural issues, oppression and the increasing diversity in Canadian society. The report addresses practices that could make restorative justice more responsive to the needs of diverse clients including integrating restorative justice with cultural safety and moving towards structurally transformative restorative justice by addressing issues such as racism, marginalization and poverty. Providing restorative justice practitioners with training in various areas such as cultural safety, intersectionality, application of anti-oppressive approaches and how to link their daily work with larger structural issues also is discussed. Over-representation of Indigenous people and racialized ethnic groups in the criminal justice system and limited literature on power, privilege and ethnicity in relation to restorative justice leads to the question of how power and privilege affects the practice of restorative justice in a diverse society.