Daniel Del Gobbo and Vathsala Illesinghe: Restorative Justice for Survivors of Sexual Violence

For every 1,000 incidents of sexual assault in Canada, only 33 are reported to police, 12 result in charges, six proceed to trial, and three lead to conviction. What do these numbers tell us about the structure of the criminal justice system and its response to sexual violence? In an opinion article published on 23 April 2018 by Policy Options, 2017 Foundation scholars Daniel Del Gobbo and Vathsala Illesinghe argued that restorative justice could shape new approaches to the “structural inequalities in the legal system that disadvantage women.” They showed how, in a restorative justice process, a qualified facilitator would bring together the survivor, the offender, and the community to discuss and decide on a collective action plan to both reduce recidivism and transform the sociocultural content that fostered violence in the first place.

Daniel Del Gobbo is a 2017 Foundation scholar and a doctoral student at the Faculty of law of the University of Toronto. Vathsala Illesinghe is a 2017 Foundation scholar and a doctoral student in policy studies at Ryerson University. Read their article here.