Getting Past the Gatekeepers: The Reception of Restorative Justice in the Nova Scotian Criminal Justice System
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This paper draws upon twelve years of multi-dimensional research and focuses on the reception of restorative justice in the criminal justice system in Nova Scotia. The paper traces the evolution of the restorative justice social movement, examining the launching and take-off phases, the impact on the police gate-keeping role, the receptivity and use of restorative justice by other criminal justice system professionals, its current level of institutionalization in the criminal justice system, and its future prospects.Cet article s'inspire de douze annees de recherche multidimensionnelle et traite plus particulierement de la reception accordee a la justice reparatrice dans le systeme de justice penale en Nouvelle-Ecosse. Il suit l'evolution du mouvement social en faveur de la justice reparatrice, examine les phases de son lancement et de son demarrage ainsi que son impact sur le role de repression de la police, la receptivite et l'utilisation de la justice reparatrice par d'autres professionnels du systeme de justice penale, son niveau d'institutionnalisation actuel dans le systeme de justice penale et ses perspectives pour l'avenir.IntroductionI. The gatekeeper roleII. Restorative justice: the launching yearsIII. Initial criminal justice system receptivity: the wallIV. Criminal justice system receptivity at the restorative justice take-off stageV. Restorative justice evolution in the Nova Scotia criminal justice system: referrals and offences referredVI. Restorative justice's evolution in the criminal justice system: institutionalizationVII. Current criminal justice system perspectivesConclusionIntroductionThe Nova Scotia Restorative Justice Program (NSRJ) came into being in 1999-2000 as a result of effective moral entrepreneurship,1 stimulated by restorative justice-related initiatives elsewhere, and after almost two years of discussion and planning among provincial leaders in policing, prosecution, judiciary, and corrections.2 It is regarded as one of the best criminal justice system-initiated restorative justice programs in Canada. The NSRJ program was set up to be applicable at all levels of the criminal justice system, with restorative justice referrals possible at four entry points, namely: pre-charge, post-charge, post-conviction, and postsentencing.3 On paper at least, restorative justice could apply to all offences and offenders, beginning with youths and subsequently being expanded to include adults. Its strengths organizationally are many: provincewide programming; secure, substantial, long-term governmental funding generous for a small so-called have-not province; collaboration with local non-profit agencies who deliver the service while the provincial NSRJ management provides coordination, protocols and training; and complete funding for the agencies' full-time staff. It has also partnered with and contributed significantly to the success of the province-wide Aboriginal restorative justice program.4 Its impact, measured in terms of conventional criminal justice system evaluation concerns, has been impressive: less recidivism than in similar, court processed cases; high levels of satisfaction among all categories of participants in the restorative justice sessions (offenders, victims, supporters, police attendees and others); and diversion of roughly thirty-three per cent of all cases of youth arrest from the court processing stream.5 The NSRJ program has evolved over the past decade-partly as a result of its effective institutionalization in the Nova Scotian criminal justice system and partly as a result of federal legislation and policies (e.g., the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJAJ and subsequent court interpretations). Now restorative justice referrals are as likely to come from crown prosecutors as from the police, where the anticipated extension of restorative justice to adults is underway throughout Nova Scotia, and where its success has stimulated restorative justice/restorative practices initiatives in provincial prisons and beyond the criminal justice system in schools' human rights cases and other areas of social life. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.009 | 0.006 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".