Trauma-informed approaches to law: Why restorative justice must understand trauma and psychological coping.

Source: (2013) The Dalhousie Law Journal. 36(2):501-533.

Becoming trauma informed entaiis becoming more astutely aware of the ways
in which people who are traumatized have their iife trajectories shaped by the
experience and its effects, and developing policies and practices which reflect
this understanding. The idea that law and, in particular, the criminal justice system,
should be trauma informed is novel, and, as a result, quite underdeveloped. In
this paper we advance the general argument that more effective, fair, intelligent,
and just legal responses must work from a perspective which is trauma informed.
We specifically apply this argument to legal work being carried out and developed
under the rubric of restorative justice as this way of thinking about law focuses
on acknowledging and repairing the harms to individuals and relationships which
result from conflict, crime or other wrongdoing. (excerpt)