A Better Way: Ottawa’s Collaborative Justice Program

I’ll let you in on a poorly kept secret: criminal courts have very little justice. An acquittal does little to vindicate or repair the harm to an innocent accused, and a conviction is cold comfort to a victim who has suffered trauma. Criminal trials – those supposed crucibles for truth – often leave the public and communities confused, uncertain, and afraid. And all this makes the criminal justice process ripe for partisan misrepresentations and politicization. Most days, the trial process feels like an expensive dinner that leaves everyone hungry and slightly nauseous.

The criminal justice system might just be the worst place to deal with broader social problems like addiction, poverty, and mental health issues. These issues are almost always made worse by a system that clings stubbornly to bureaucracy and centuries-old colonial traditions – like a ghost refusing to move on because it hasn’t yet figured out it’s dead.

Given the cost and trauma associated with the current system, it’s shocking that we don’t ask more frequently if there’s a better way to dispense justice. Sure, we’ve taken some timid steps in the right direction – drug treatment courts, Gladue courts, and mental health courts all make a real difference – but even these progressive initiatives are built on the same old court model. They operate like duct-taped patches on a fundamentally broken machine.

So, that’s the problem. And despite the slow-moving wheels of change, the solution is already parked right in front of our noses – engine running, ready to go.

Ottawa’s Collaborative Justice Program (CJP) is what happens when the criminal justice system puts down its gavel for a second and says, “Maybe we should talk about this.” Collaborative justice brings together victims, offenders, and community members for honest conversations about harm, accountability, and healing – things that don’t fit neatly into an adversarial courtroom. Instead of the usual winner-loser courtroom drama, these programs help people work out meaningful, sometimes emotional, but far more satisfying resolutions. Think fewer angry lawyers shouting “Objection!” and more people writing letters, making amends, and sometimes – even in all the messiness – finding hope.

But while police departments always find money at the trough for more helicopters, armoured trucks, and enough tactical gear to invade a small country, the Collaborative Justice Program relies on bake sale energy to fund life-changing work. Sure, they get some government funding – for youth cases and select projects – but for everything else, they depend on the kindness of strangers. That’s right: the program delivering humane, cost-effective justice must shake the donation jar while the traditional system gets blank cheques to buy new toys. If that sounds backwards, it’s because it is.

Ben Perrin is one of the more compelling voices calling for change in our justice system – yes, that Ben Perrin – the former justice policy advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and once a die-hard believer in the “tough on crime” doctrine. In Indictment: The Criminal Justice System on Trial – his latest book and a thoughtful dismantling of the system he used to defend – Perrin champions programs like Ottawa’s Collaborative Justice Program as evidence-based solutions to the chronic failures of our adversarial model. As he puts it, “Survivors are more satisfied, recidivism is lower, and it costs less.” He argues that we must get over the idea that accountability equals punishment because while most offenders are punished, few are held accountable. And here’s the kicker: Perrin rightly points out that “if you punish someone, they focus on the punishment rather than what led to it” – something every parent already knows. Collaborative justice flips the script by getting people to confront the why, not just suffer the what, and in doing so, it offers the kind of transformation the traditional system never quite manages.

I’ve seen it firsthand. One of my clients, facing a charge of sexual assault, was able to take part in a collaborative justice process that led to real accountability and healing. The victim felt heard for the first time. My client – dismissed by the system as just another statistic – took meaningful steps toward making things right. Another client, a young man with no prior record, found a way to express remorse and repair harm without being dragged through years of court dates and legal limbo. These weren’t “soft” outcomes. They were just better ones.

But it’s not just a lack of funding that holds back the good work of CJP – it’s a lack of willingness. No one is ever forced to participate in the process, but even when both the complainant and the accused want to move forward collaboratively, the Crown still retains a veto. And too often, that power is used as a blanket prohibition, rejecting more serious seeming offences, regardless of the circumstances or the wishes of those most directly affected. When victims and accused demand something better, and our court system collapses under its own weight, we need more collaborative justice – not less.

We already know what doesn’t work. Decades of tough-on-crime slogans have left us with overburdened courts, overcrowded prisons, and communities reeling from cycles of harm. It’s time we gave a little more oxygen – and funding – to what does work. Programs like the Collaborative Justice Program offer an alternative and a better, smarter, more human kind of justice. Frankly, if something is cheaper and kinder and gets results, maybe we should stop treating it like a radical experiment and start treating it like the new standard.

Visit the Ottawa Collaborative Justice Program website to support the good work.