U of R conference aims to educate next generation of justice workers in restorative justice practices

WATCH: A U of R conference aimed to educate the next generation of justice workers in restorative justice practices. Donovan Maess reports.

The UR Restorative Justice Club hosted a conference Wednesday educating students, professors, current and future justice professionals in the art of restorative justice practices.

Kwantlen Polytechnic University Criminologist Lisa Monchalin was the keynote speaker for the event.

“[Governments] leave out, or do not fully acknowledge the historical context when discussing what books label, ‘the Aboriginal offender,” Monchalin told the conference. “And it leaves people with an inaccurate representation of the whole picture.”

According to Statistics Canada, Indigenous people make up 25 per cent of all accused individuals in the country’s justice system, while representing only 5 per cent of the Canadian population.

Indigenous people also account for 25 per cent of all homicide victims.

Monchalin said the current justice system does not meet the needs of the people who find themselves in it.

“It should be framed in terms of a problem of that colonial system that continues to impose these foreign institutions, laws and structures,” she added.

Monchalin, who has researched the history of Indigenous justice, said administration looked much different pre-contact with colonizers.

“To maintain order and balance, a range of approaches were used,” she said. “Including redistributive practices, mediation, reconciliation.”

File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council Director of Restorative Justice Beverly Poitras said the practice hopes to bring back traditional values to the current system.

“What were our laws, what was conflict resolution like why there was no prisons or any of the judges or lawyers,” she explained. “It was a different kind of an environment. And how do we change that Canadian justice systems to something that is restorative.”

University of Regina Justice Studies Professor Muhammad Asadullah believes there are several misconceptions around restorative justice.

Primarily it is used in cases of less serious offenses and promotes softer penalties for crime.

“But what [research] found across the world, somebody with serious offenses who start off this process are at more likelihood to be rehabilitated in the community,” he told CTV News.

“Addressing harms and needs are the top priority, focusing on healing of the top priority. And then as an outcome, sometimes people do not re-offend,” Asadullah added.

Poitras says crime is the result of a broken spirit. But restorative justice can bring reconciliation into the justice system.

“What is good for us as Indigenous people, would be good for anything,” she said. “But in our colonial system, that’s been forced on us.

“That has to be taken into consideration,” Poitras added.

Asadullah believes success would have far reaching effects on all levels of the justice system.

“Hopefully this conference will cultivate and have some ripple effects,” he said. “Restorative justice is a relational way of seeing the world. And hopefully it can be applied to any settings, context and people who are interested, not just justice.”

“But to people like you and me in different fields,” Asadullah said.