Introduction

Restorative justice functions as an overarching term for the many practices and approaches to justice that seek to repair harm by providing an opportunity for those harmed and those who take responsibility for the harm to communicate and address their needs in the aftermath of an offence. Usually, restorative justice involves interaction between the offenders or persons who have caused harm, the victims, community members, and facilitators who leads the restorative justice process. Those who facilitate restorative justice processes may have various titles, such as facilitator, mediator, Circle Keeper, practitioner, community justice worker, or case worker. In Indigenous communities, Elders or Knowledge Keepers also act as facilitators. Restorative justice programs may use different types of restorative justice process models. The models most often used in the Canadian criminal justice system are restorative conferences, victim-offender mediation, and restorative circles. Although restorative justice can exist in many forms, for the purposes of this report it is a general concept and approach that encompasses the different practices, culture, history, and ideologies that are used in communities across Canada.

Restorative justice has been practised in Canada for over 50 years. However, more recently governments across Canada have been promoting the increased use of restorative justice to address issues facing the criminal justice system, notably the overrepresentation of Indigenous and vulnerable persons. This follows the 2018 decision at the table of Federal-Provincial-Territorial Deputy Ministers responsible for Justice and Public Safety, which committed to a 5 percent increase in referrals and accepted cases into restorative justice programs between 2017–2018 and 2022–2023.

To help measure progress toward the target increase of 5 percent, the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Working Group on Restorative Justice (i.e., Working Group on Restorative Justice) developed an annual jurisdictional scan to track and report on changes in the annual number of referrals, accepted cases, and counts of offenders and victims in restorative justice programs. The scan collects this information on restorative justice programs operated or funded by the departments and ministries participating in the Working Group on Restorative Justice for the purpose of noting annual changes in restorative justice referrals and cases. Reporting began with the 2017–2018 reference period up to the most recent cycle in 2019–2020.

The results of the scan have been used to measure and support both policy objectives and the performance of the criminal justice system. Although the jurisdictional scan provides some data on restorative justice at a national level, the quality of restorative justice data holdings by the Working Group on Restorative Justice partners continues to be affected by a number of challenges. These include:

1) Data comprehensiveness

The jurisdictional scan only includes data from restorative justice processes that are delivered or funded by a government ministry or by departments that are members of the Working Group on Restorative Justice. No one has previously assessed the full limitations of these data. For example, it is possible that some funded projects are missing from the collected data, if, for example, some programs are unable to provide data on their caseloads. Likewise, there are unfunded programs that would need to be included to provide a full picture of restorative justice in Canada.

2) Standardized definitions

It is important to ensure consistency in the definitions used by funded programs. For example, some provinces include extrajudicial sanction cases (i.e., alternative ways to address offences outside of the traditional criminal justice system) and others exclude them. To have a better understanding of how information on restorative justice cases is recorded, it would be useful to put indicators in context when analyzing the data for possible differences between jurisdictions.

3) Analytical capacity

Data points and the level of their disaggregation (i.e., how data is broken down into smaller units and more specific categories) vary considerably by jurisdiction. Across the country, there is also a mix of microdata and aggregate data holdings. Jurisdictions with microdata holdings may be able to develop more substantive analytical projects. This includes the potential to link their microdata at Statistics Canada using the Social Data Linkage Environment to develop more comprehensive datasets to effectively respond to research questions.

To address these questions and explore the scope of restorative justice data holdings in Canada, Statistics Canada and Justice Canada engaged with government and restorative justice program officials across Canada to discuss how restorative justice was being used. With Justice Canada’s funding and the support from the Working Group on Restorative Justice, the engagements were held in 2023. This report summarizes the key findings of these discussions and provides recommendations for strengthening data collection and research on restorative justice in Canada.

Between fall 2023 and winter 2024, Statistics Canada held calls with representatives across the country from restorative justice programs and government ministries involved in restorative justice to discuss restorative justice data. The guided discussions focused on four primary themes: (1) data holdings (2) definitions of restorative justice (3) relevant analysis, and (4) data improvements. The methodology of this project is discussed in more detail below.

Based on these discussions, participants made a number of recommendations to improve restorative justice data and analysis over the coming years. The report highlights a summary of the key findings and recommendations below. See Appendix A for a list of more detailed recommendations.