Restorative Justice

Source: (2003) Paper presented at a Public Forum, Restorative Justice: Humanizing Justice, Restorative Justice Week 2003, Ottawa, Canada, November 19. The Church Council on Justice and Corrections. Downloaded 14 January 2005.

Restorative Justice Week is a week dedicated to education about and advancement of restorative justice among churches and the public in general. Michel Dunn presented this paper at a public forum entitled “Restorative justice: Humanizing justice” during Restorative Justice Week 2003, held in Ottawa, Canada, November 19. According to Dunn, while restorative justice as a term is a relatively new concept in Canada, it is in fact an approach to wrongdoing that is much older. Aboriginal people have used this kind of approach for a long time. Dunn goes on to point out that restorative justice has even been applied for a long time to deal with the most serious crime of all – murder. He illustrates this using his own life as example. When he was younger, Dunn killed his law partner, a crime for which he was convicted and incarcerated. In this paper he recounts his journey back from that darkness through the restorative efforts of a number of people visiting him in jail.