The Evolution of Criminal Justice System
at the Beginning of the 21st Century
In the last Issue of The Reporter1,
the issue of an apparent misconception concerning the role of
our Courts was discussed. The distinction
between Crime Control and Due Process, as set out by Professor
Herbert Packer in his 1968 book, The Limits of the Criminal
Sanction, was provided as a guide to understanding this misconception. But
while that debate concerning the appropriate role of our Courts
rages in the mass media and amongst those adherents of particular
political philosophies, a far more fundamental shift in the role
of our Courts
has already started to occur – largely as a result of the
actions of Judges of these very Courts, with the support of provincial
and federal Ministries of Justice. What is happening is
that while those who believe the response to the "revolving
door" aspect of our criminal justice system is to move
to the Crime Control model at the expense of Due Process, the
Judges and administrators of our justice system who deal with
this on a daily basis have recognized that a system that exists
to penalize
offenders has had very little effect on changing their behaviour,
and absolutely no effect on addressing the root causes of the
problems. As with most of the innovations that have arisen
in the administration of criminal justice in last decades,
this movement started in the United States with the introduction
of "Problem Solving Courts" or "Community
Courts". A vernacular has been created that variously
refers to the processes in these Courts as "restorative
justice", "community justice", or "therapeutic
justice" (to name but a few). And as the names for these
Courts and the labels for the processes within them imply,
the focus of the activities is not the punishment of offenders,
but the healing of the harm caused by the offender – the
harm to the victims, the community, and to the offender him
or her self. Recent examples in Alberta are the Domestic Violence
Courts in Calgary and Edmonton, and the Edmonton Drug Treatment
and Community Restoration Court.
1 The Role of the Courts. The
Reporter, Spring
2005. The John Howard Society of Alberta. Edmonton. |
