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36 Dalhousie L.J. 501 (2013)
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law: Why Restorative Justice Must Understand Trauma and Psychological Coping

handle is hein.journals/dalholwj36 and id is 515 raw text is: Melanie Randall* and Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law: Lori Haskell** Why Restorative Justice Must Understand Trauma and Psychological Coping Becoming trauma informed entails becoming more astutely aware of the ways in which people who are traumatized have their life trajectories shaped by the experience and its effects, and developing policies and practices which reflect this understanding. The idea that law and, in particular the criminal justice system, should be trauma informed is novel, and, as a result, quite underdeveloped. In this paper we advance the general argument that more effective, fair, intelligent, and just legal responses must work from a perspective which is trauma informed. We specifically apply this argument to legal work being carried out and developed under the rubric of restorative justice as this way of thinking about law focuses on acknowledging and repairing the harms to individuals and relationships which result from conflict, crime or other wrongdoing. L'acquisition dinformations et de renseignements sur les traumatismes exige une grande sensibilitd aux fagons dont les victimes de traumatismes voient leur parcours de vie orientd par l'exp6rience et par ses effets; elle exige aussi que soient 6iabor6es des politiques et des pratiques qui refl~tent cette sensibilit6. L'id6e que les lois, plus particulibrement le systbme de justice pinale, doivent prendre les traumatismes en consid6ration est relativement rdcente et, par cons6quent, encore peu ddvelopp6e. Dans cet article, nous avangons la those g6ndrale que des reponses juridiques plus efficaces, plus dquitables, plus intelligentes et plus justes doivent s'articuler autour d'une perspective 6clair6e quant aux traumatismes. Nous appliquons cette these sp6cifiquement au travail de nature juridique effectu6 et perfectionn6 au nom de la justice r6paratrice puisque cette manibre de concevoir la loi repose sur la reconnaissance et la r6paration des prdjudices caus6s aux personnes et aux relations par un diffdrend, un crime ou tout autre acte r6pr6hensible. * Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Western University. We thank our colleague and friend Jennifer Llewellyn for her enthusiastic embrace of and critical engagement with this work and these ideas, and also thank Terrah Smith, JD, Faculty of Law, Western University, for excellent research assistance. ** Lori Haskell, CPsych, Clinical Psychologist in Private Practice, and Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto.

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