Restorative justice approach to alternatives to detention: an analysis of Canadian immigration detention

This paper presents a literature review on restorative justice, immigration detention and alternatives to detention. I propose that a restorative justice approach and practices could be taken into consideration when developing ATD programs in Canada as well as for addressing current issues that surround immigration detention. Restorative justice is a process to involve, to the extent possible, those who have a stake in a specific offence and to identify and address harms, needs and obligations collectively, with the objective to ‘heal’ and put things as right as possible (Zehr, 2015). There is a research gap in the field of restorative justice and immigration in general. Restorative justice traditionally aligns itself with the criminal justice system but has potential to be applied to many areas and its application to immigration issues is a relatively new area. As these concepts can provide for a new approach towards reconciling issues involving victims and offenders outside of criminal justice, an argument can be made that there is potential for the implementation of restorative justice to have value within immigration detention. Key Words: Restorative Justice, Alternatives to Detention, Immigration detention, Canada