To Hurt or to Heal: The Contest over Crime and Punishment

During the last few years, restorative justice has been widely promoted as a solution to Canada's rising rate of imprisonment. Parliament has instructed judges to seek alternatives to imprisonment; the Supreme Court has held that the restorative approach to sentencing constitutes 'a watershed' in the history of Canadian criminal law; and the RCMP and the Correctional Service of Canada have both endorsed this approach.Ideas producer David Cayley talks to policy-makers, judges, correctional officials, offenders and victims about whether restorative justice can be made to work in the day-to-day grind of criminal justice administration.David Cayley is the author of 'To Hurt or to Heal: The Contest over Crime and Punishment' with ISBN 9780660181639 and ISBN 0660181630.