Source: (2005) Workshop 2: Enhancing Criminal Justice Reform Including Restorative Justice, 22 April, Item 8 (b) of the provisional agenda, at the Eleventh United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, Bangkok, Thailand. Downloaded 18 May 2005.
The Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Solicitor General, which I
had the honour of chairing, began its review of sentencing, conditional release and related aspects
of the correctional system in the spring of 1987, about the time a protracted and difficult national
debate on capital punishment was coming to an end. Many of the issues raised in the House of
Commons and across the country during that debate went beyond the question of capital
punishment. They demonstrated that public confidence in many aspects of our criminal justice
system was low. Many Canadians felt that they were not being fully protected and that crime
was out of control. The Committee believed that this public perception, whether well-founded or
not, had to be addressed and the issues raised by it be faced. The Committee undertook this study
partly as a result of this sense of public unease. (excerpt)
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