Restorative Injustice?: The Boundaries of Restorative Justice at the Intersections of Gender, Race and Class: A Canadian Focus

Source: (2000) M.A. thesis, Carleton University, Ottawa.

For years there have been calls by Canadians for a more healing system of criminal justice. We have tinkered with the system but are never any more satisfied with what is developed. In an effort to move beyond tinkering with the pattern of thinking about criminal justice, “restorative justiceâ€? was developed. Restorative justice seeks to heal all parties affected by wrongdoing, including the wrongdoer, the sufferer of wrong and their communities. Within the restorative justice literature, however, there are no developed critical analyses of this vision of justice. Nor have any diversity/intersectional analyses been completed. The purpose of this thesis, therefore, was to discover whether Canadians involved in the restorative justice movement are taking gender, race and class seriously. I found that there has been very little consultation by proponents and governments with equality-seeking organizations and the principles of restorative justice are lacking in diversity analyses. In addition, the definition of restorative justice is vulnerable to misinterpretation thereby increasing the risk that existing inequalities will be transferred into this new vision of justice. In conclusion, restorative justice in practice does not, in it present form, improve equality for multiply oppressed Canadians, thus resulting in restorative in-justice rather than restorative justice. Author’s abstract.