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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 d’informations et de renseignements sur les traumatismes exige
une grande sensibilité aux façons dont les victimes de traumatismes voient leur
parcours de vie orienté par l’expérience et par ses effets; elle exige aussi que
soient élaborées des politiques et des pratiques qui reflètent cette sensibilité.
L’idée que les lois, plus particulièrement le système de justice pénale, doivent
prendre les traumatismes en considération est relativement récente et, par
conséquent, encore peu développée. Dans cet article, nous avançons la thèse
générale que des réponses juridiques plus efficaces, plus équitables, plus
intelligentes et plus justes doivent s’articuler autour d’une perspective éclairée
quant aux traumatismes. Nous appliquons cette thèse spécifiquement au travail
de nature juridique effectué et perfectionné au nom de la justice réparatrice
puisque cette manière de concevoir la loi repose sur la reconnaissance et la
réparation des préjudices causés aux personnes et aux relations par un différend,
un crime ou tout autre acte répréhensible.
* 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.
502 The Dalhousie Law Journal
Introduction
I. Identifying and understanding trauma and its impacts
1. What does the term “trauma” describe?
2. An expanded framework: understanding trauma through a bio-
psycho-social lens
3. Types of post-traumatic stress: simple and complex or
developmental trauma
4. Understanding trauma contextually: social context and justice
II. Trauma, harms, and justice
1. Why is understanding trauma relevant to law?
2. What does “trauma-informed” mean?
3. Restorative justice, harms, and relationships
4. Why must a restorative approach to doing justice be trauma-
informed?
III. How trauma-informed approaches enhance justice system responses
to crime
1. The role of justice in resolving trauma
2. Trauma-informed approaches and victims
3. Trauma-informed approaches and offenders
4.
the community: from isolation to social connection
5. Community, attachments, and relationships: contexts for repair
and resolution
6. Creating shared narratives about crime, harms, and
restoration: narrative repair and justice
Conclusion
Introduction
A cross-section of a tree reveals its story, as told by the pattern of growth
year, and documenting injuries sustained throughout its life. Much in
the same way, humans experience periods of trauma and resilience
over the course of our lifespans. A trauma-informed approach seeks to
understand the ways in which these experiences shape us.1
1. National Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women, “Trauma-Informed Domestic
Violence Services: Understanding the Framework and Approach,” online: <ht tp: //w ww.va wn et .
org/special-collections/DVTraumaInformed-Overview?utm_source=VAWnet+
eNewsletter&utm_campaign=3f4b7dcfee-Special+Announcement%3A+Trauma-
Informed+Services&utm_medium=email>.
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 503
Out of all human events, it is tragedy alone that brings people out of
their own petty desires and into awareness of other humans’ suffering.
—CS Lewis
Traumatic life experiences are widespread and damaging, exacting a
huge cost in human suffering and the associated social, economic, and
legal consequences of untreated and unresolved trauma in people’s lives.2
Traumatic life experiences require the expenditure of considerable social
and economic resources in the health care and child welfare systems,
mental health and addiction programs, social programs, homelessness and
housing services, and, too often, in family law, the criminal justice system,
and other legal areas. Trauma and law, therefore, are interconnected.
The impacts of trauma are widespread, affecting many people’s
cent and ninety per cent of people have experienced at least one traumatic
event in their lifetime.3 Approximately one quarter of these people
experienced traumatizing events when they were children.4 Trauma
experiences in childhood, particularly ongoing traumatic experiences,
have substantial developmental impacts across various facets of a person’s
2. See, for example, Nancy Poole & Lorraine Greaves, eds, Becoming Trauma-Informed (Toronto:
CAMH Publications, 2012); Laura Prescott et al, A Long Journey Home: A Guide for Creating
Trauma-Informed Services for Mothers and Children Experiencing Homelessness (Rockville, MD:
Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
2008), online: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration <http://www.homeless.
samhsa.gov>; Kathleen Guarino et al, Trauma-Informed Organizational Toolkit (Rockville, MD:
Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
2008), online: Family Homelessness <http://www.familyhomelessness.org/media/90.pdf>; Sandra L
Bloom, Creating Sanctuary: Toward the Evolution of Sane Societies (New York: Routledge, 1997);
M Harris & Roger D Fallot, New Directions for Mental Health Services: Using Trauma Theory to
Design Service Systems (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001); Healthcare for the Homeless Clinicians’
Network, Healing Hands: Delivering Trauma-Informed Care (Nashville: National Health Care for the
Homeless Council, 2010).
3. Steven Wiland, “‘What happened to you?’ Addressing Trauma with Community Mental Health
Populations: A Toolkit for Providers” (Washtenaw, MI: National Clearing House for Trauma-Informed
Care, 2010), online: Integrated Recovery <http://integratedrecovery.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/
What_Happened_to_You_-_Addressing_Trauma_with_Community_Mental_Health_Populations-A_
Toolkit_for_Providers5.pdf>.
4. E Jane Costello et al, “The prevalence of traumatic events in childhood and adolescence” (2002)
15:2 J Trauma Stress 99.
504 The Dalhousie Law Journal
psychological capacities, self-awareness, self-integration, and, as research
is now showing, even on aspects of the physical and bodily self.5
Complex trauma, or developmental trauma, are relatively new
conceptualizations which capture the multiple and interconnected
effects of experiences of ongoing exposure to traumatic events, most
typically abuse, violence, and neglect, among others, in interpersonal and
family relationships.6 Although not recognized in the recently released
developmental trauma is becoming very widely used by leading mental
health experts, and is a recognized global public health concern.7
of trauma, the brain, and neuroscience, there is an expanding recognition
in a variety of contexts that a trauma-informed approach to working with
people is an essential part of effective policy, practice, and institutional
5. For a small sampling of an extensive literature, see, for example, Wendy D’Andrea et al,
“Physical Health Problems After Single Trauma Exposure: When Stress Takes Root in the Body”
(2011) 17:6 J American Psych Nurses Association 378; A Karl et al, “A meta-analysis of structural
brain abnormalities in PTSD” (2006) 30 Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Rev 1004; D Lauterbach, R
Vora & M Rakow, “The relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder and self-reported health
problems” (2005) 67 Psychosomatic Medicine 939; Casey Lawler, Paige Ouimette & Drew Dahlstedt,
“Posttraumatic stress symptoms, coping, and physical health status among university students seeking
health care” (2005) 18 J Traumatic Stress 741.
6. See, for example, Bessel A van der Kolk, “Developmental trauma disorder: Towards a rational
diagnosis for children with complex trauma histories” (2005) Psychiatric Annals 401, online:
pdf>; Laurance Heller & Aline Lapierre, Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects
Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books,
2012); Joseph Spinazzola et al, “The Heart of the Matter: Complex Trauma in Child Welfare” (2013)
CW360 Trauma-Informed Child Welfare Practice 8 at 9, 37; Wendy D’Andrea et al, “Understanding
Interpersonal Trauma in Children: Why We Need a Developmentally Appropriate Trauma Diagnosis”
(2012) 82:2 Am J Orthopsychiatry 187; Bradley Stolbach, “Developmental Trauma Disorder: A
New Diagnosis for Children Affected by Complex Trauma,” (2007) 25:6 Int Soc’y Study of Trauma
& Dissociation News 4; Marylene Cloitre et al, “A Developmental Approach to Complex PTSD:
Childhood and Adult Cumulative Trauma as Predictors of Symptom Complexity” (2009) J Traumatic
Stress 1; Mark Moran, “Developmental Trauma Merits DSM Diagnosis, Experts Say” (2007) 42:3
Psychiatry News 20; Tori DeAngelis, “A New Diagnosis for Childhood Trauma” (2007) 38:3 Monitor
on Psych 32.
7. Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse
to Political Terror (New York: Basic Books, 1997); Margaret E Blaustein, “A New Take on Childhood
Trauma: Expanding the diagnostic frame for childhood trauma,” Psychology Today (6 January
2011), online: <http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/trauma-and-stress-in-childhood/201101/
new-take-childhood-trauma>; Bessel A van der Kolk, “Developmental trauma disorder: Towards a
rational diagnosis for children with complex trauma histories,” online: The Trauma Centre <http://
Kolk, Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society (New
York: Guilford Press, 1996); NJ Burke et al, “The impact of adverse childhood experiences on an
urban pediatric population” (2011) 35:6 Child Abuse & Neglect: The International Journal 408; World
Health Organization, World Report on Violence and Health (Geneva: WHO, 2002).
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 505
organization.8 A trauma-informed approach to programs and services
begins from an acknowledgment of the extent of traumatic experiences in
the human population and an understanding of the ways in which trauma
responses affect people’s lives, capacities, and abilities to cope with life’s
challenges. It recognizes that effective interventions with people require
both the avoidance of re-traumatization and the presence of respectful and
supportive interventions that help people rebuild their lives. While this
recognition is most strongly taking hold in the mental health and social
service contexts, why would it not also apply to interventions which are
legal?
As Howard Zehr observes, “an experience of victimization and even
9 Crimes
and wrongdoings generally cause lasting, damaging, and often traumatic
impacts in people’s lives. This is obviously the case for crimes involving
violence and abuse. It is well documented in academic research and in
the clinical literature, that the traumatic effects following experiences of
violence can ripple deeply through people’s lives for many years, often to
the point that life is never experienced in the same way it had been. It is
not only the immediate victims who are deeply, if differently, affected by
traumatizing events but also many other people connected to the event and
connected to its direct victim(s) in a variety of ways.
This is another potential strength of legal responses that recognize
the harms and the parties in broader and more holistic ways, as they can
involve more of those affected and thus better attend to the fullness of
the diffused effects of a traumatic incident.10 Recognizing this makes it
obvious that legal responses to crimes and other human problems, whether
by being organized around more informed understandings of human
behavior, psychology, the impacts of trauma, and how healing from
trauma can occur. Put differently, the law too should strive to become
trauma informed.
In terms of law, the idea that legal responses and, in particular, the
criminal justice system, should be trauma informed is quite new and, as
a result, underdeveloped. In this paper we advance the general argument
that more effective, fair, intelligent, and just legal responses must work
8. See, generally, supra note 2; Healthcare for the Homeless Clinicians’ Network, Healing Hands:
Delivering Trauma-Informed Care (Nashville: National Health Care for the Homeless Council, 2010).
9.
Transformation and Peacebuilding” (2009) 18:1.5 J Peace & Just Studies 23 [Zehr, “Intersection”].
10. We owe this point to Jennifer Llewellyn.
506 The Dalhousie Law Journal
argument to legal work being carried out and developed under the rubric
of restorative justice as this way of thinking about law expressly values
the repair and restoration (even if this means the initial establishing) of
healthy relationships among people.11
Restorative justice is an approach to dealing with crimes and
wrongdoing which takes seriously the need for repair of relationships
harmed by these events. A restorative approach to law envisions justice in
more expansive terms than is conceived of in the more traditional punitive
and retributive models of criminal law. A restorative model of justice
requires not only offender accountability but also victim participation and
community engagement in the process of identifying and rectifying the
wrongs which have been committed.
These foundational elements of restorative justice at the level of
practice express the commitment of restorative justice at the level of theory
and values, to a view of justice which has been described as “relational.”12
Because restorative justice sees the task of repair of relationships as
central to the project of justice, a trauma-informed approach is not only
profoundly compatible, but as we argue, absolutely essential to its theory
and, especially, its practice.
This analysis is conceptual. It is intended to outline the reasons why
enhanced by fully engaging with the insights and knowledge generated
informed and restorative justice in order to sketch out the arguments about
why there is such a complementarity between these approaches. In Part II
the understanding of trauma and its impacts on human development. In Part
III of the paper we articulate some initial thoughts about what a trauma-
informed approach offers to the constitutive elements of a restorative
justice approach by outlining its relevance to victims, offenders, and the
community. We conclude the paper by pointing out that the values guiding
11. Restorative justice, despite the apparent backward looking association which the term “restore”
might be taken to imply, does not presume the existence of healthy or equal relationships which
require restoration, but seeks to establish them (as much as possible).
12. Jennifer J Llewellyn, “Restorative Justice: Thinking Relationally about Justice” in Jocelyn
Downie & Jennifer J Llewellyn, eds,
Law and Policy (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012) [Llewellyn, “Thinking Relationally”]; Llewellyn et al,
“Imagining Success” (2013) 36 Dal LJ 281.
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 507
one another. Given this normative consonance, and in light of what the
depth and explosion of knowledge about trauma responses and impacts
can offer to restorative justice models for dealing with legal problems
and, particularly, crime, more effective and skilled restorative justice
approaches must become explicitly trauma informed. This can only lead
to more humane, sophisticated, and effective justice interventions into
people’s lives.
I. Identifying and understanding trauma and its impacts
1. What does the term “trauma” describe?
There have been dramatic developments in understanding the nature
of trauma responses to distinguish between simple and complex trauma,
psychiatry, and neuroscience have witnessed an explosion of knowledge,
research, and clinical insights into the nature of the development of the
the ways in which normal or typical development is affected by traumatic
events and traumatic responses.
While almost everyone experiences distressing events over the
course of a lifetime, not everyone experiences events that are traumatic.
Unlike a stressful encounter or situation, a traumatic event is one which
is so overwhelming that it diminishes a person’s capacities to cope, as
it elicits intense feelings of fear, terror, helplessness, hopelessness, and
despair often subjectively experienced as a threat to the person’s survival.
Traumatic events are not necessarily violent, though they always entail the
violation of a person’s sense of self and security.13
It is important to note that potentially trauma-inducing events are
mediated by a range of factors, including a person’s previous experiences,
psychological makeup, and capacities. This means that an event which
may be traumatic to one person might not necessarily be so to another.
Trauma is measured and assessed not only in relation to the severity and
nature of the triggering event(s), but also, and perhaps most crucially, in
relation to the person’s perception and experience of these events.
Trauma can be acute (a single traumatic event limited in time),
chronic (multiple traumatic events), or complex (a mix of events).14 It
13. Nina Kammerer & Ruta Mazelis, “After the Crisis Initiative: Healing from Trauma after
Disasters” (Paper presented at the After the Crisis: Healing from Trauma after Disasters Expert Panel
Meeting in Bethesda, MD, 24–25 April 2006), online: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration <http://gainscenter.samhsa.gov/atc/text/papers/trauma_paper.htm>.
14. Ibid.
508 The Dalhousie Law Journal
can include a wide range of events, both human-driven and not. These
include: emotional, physical, and sexual abuse; neglect; physical assaults;
witnessing violence in the family, school, or community; war; racism;
serious injuries; intrusive or painful medical procedures; loss of loved
ones; abandonment; and separation.15
Trauma affects people from all socioeconomic backgrounds, levels
of educational attainment, areas of geographical residence, ages, and
16 Research suggests, however, that the more
marginalized and most vulnerable members of society are at greater risk
for trauma responses.17 It is more common for youth, the impoverished,
and minority groups to experience trauma, demonstrating the importance
of social context in understanding trauma.18 Women are more likely to
experience higher rates of trauma responses, indicating that gender is
also important and relevant in understanding trauma, its causes, and its
effects.19
Traumatic experiences shape many aspects of a person’s life, particularly
early in life. Traumatic experiences early in life have developmental
impacts, which can sculpt and shape neurological responses. The changes
or alterations in abuse survivors’ cognitions and emotional regulation are
often complicated and varied. When not seen through a trauma lens, these
alterations or changes are often and inappropriately labeled as pathological,
when they should instead be viewed as adaptations a person has had to
make, in order to cope with life’s circumstances.20
Recognizing and understanding trauma necessarily involves focusing
on harms, and the ways in which traumatic events and responses
15.
should know about trauma and delinquency” (National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges,
2010), online: National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges <http://www.ncjfcj.org/sites/
16. Kammerer & Mazelis, supra note 13.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. See, for example, National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Center for Girls and Young
Women, “Understanding Trauma through a Gender Lens” (2010) online: National Council on Crime
and Delinquency <http://www.nccdglobal.org/node/441>; TL Holbrook et al, “Gender differences in
long-term posttraumatic stress disorder outcomes after major trauma: women are at higher risk of
adverse outcomes than men” (2002) 535 J Trauma 882; Rosario B Hidalgo & Jonathan RT Davidson,
“Posttraumatic stress disorder: epidemiology and health-related considerations” (2000) 61 J Clin
Psychiatry 5 at 7; David F Tolin & Edna B Foa, “Sex differences in trauma and posttraumatic stress
disorder: a quantitative review of 25 years of research” (2006) 132:6 Psychol Bull 959; Naomi Breslau
et al, “Sex differences in posttraumatic stress disorder” (1997) 54:11 Arch Gen Psychiatry 1044.
20. Lori Haskell, First Stage Trauma Treatment for Women (Toronto: Centre for Addiction and
Mental Health, 2003).
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 509
interfere with and can compromise both early development (for traumas
in childhood) and very often affect everyday functioning in adult life,
sometimes even in ways that are not necessarily evident to the traumatized
person. Recognition of trauma and its effects on a person’s life, however,
does not preclude a simultaneous focus on their resilience and strengths.
Indeed it would be a mistake to fail to acknowledge these. In fact, “as
important as it is to study and understand the effects of trauma, it is
equally imperative to study and understand the conditions of wellness and
resilience, and how these are achieved.”21
Resilience describes a person’s capacity to deal with adversity.
Psychological resilience refers to the ability to integrate and process
overwhelming experiences so as not to become caught in them, destabilized
or dysregulated by them in an ongoing way. Resilient responses allow us
to learn from, better cope with, and even draw strength from adverse life
experiences.
best trauma treatments and approaches to healing trauma take a strengths-
based approach to working with traumatized people, an approach which
attributes.22 Recognizing resilience, therefore, is a crucial aspect of a
complete appreciation of a person’s life and capacities and attention to this
and trauma literature.23 Recognizing and promoting resilience, therefore,
is also a fundamental component of effective trauma-informed work.
21. Lori Haskell & Melanie Randall, “Disrupted Attachments: A Social Context Complex Trauma
Framework and the Lives of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada” (2009) 5:3 J Aboriginal Health 48.
22. Haskell, supra note 20; Fredrike P Bannink, “Posttraumatic Success: Solution-Focused Brief
Therapy” (2008) 8:3 Brief Treat Crisis Interv 215. See also programs such as: kidsLink, “Understanding
trauma can help build wellness and resilience,” online: <http://kidslinkcares.com>; The Stress, Trauma
and Resilience Treatment (START) clinical service, online: <http://www.aboutourkids.org/families/
care_at_the_csc/START>. See also organizations such as: Resilience Research Centre, online: <http://
resilienceresearch.org>.
23. See, for example, Virginia Hughes & Nature Magazine, “Roots of Post-Trauma Resilience
Sought in Genetics and Brain Changes,”
genetics-brain-changes>; Tuppett M Yates, Byron Egeland & L Alan Sroufe, “Rethinking Resilience:
A Developmental Process Perspective” in Suniya S Luther, ed, Resilience and Vulnerability Adaptation
in the Context of Childhood Adversities (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 2003) 243;
Pratyusha Tummuala-Narra, “Conceptualizing Trauma and Resilience Across Diverse Contexts: A
Multicultural Perspective” (2007) 14:1-2 Journal of Aggression Maltreatment & Trauma 33; Mary
R Harvey, “Towards an Ecological Understanding of Resilience in Trauma Survivors Implications
for Theory, Research, and Practice” (2007) 14:1-2 Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma,
Volume 9; Robert J Johnson et al, “Posttraumatic Growth: Action and Reaction” (2007) 56:3 Applied
Psychology 428; Maren Westphal & George A Bonanno, “Posttraumatic Growth and Resilience to
Trauma: Different Sides of the Same Coin or Different Coins?” (2007) 56:3 Applied Psychology 417.
510 The Dalhousie Law Journal
2. An expanded framework: understanding trauma through a bio-
psycho-social lens24
…we will never be able to understand such human ability as moral
judgment or empathy without studying the brain, its development, and
evolutionary history.
—Jean Decety
Irving B. Harris Professor in Psychology and Psychiatry
University of Chicago25
People working within the legal and other systems which respond to
a clear conceptual framework to understand what the people involved in
these systems are experiencing, as well as an understanding of why in the
contexts of their lives they are having those experiences and responses.
It is also imperative that legal actors have enhanced understandings of
what motivates human behaviour (or how else can we hope to understand
the causes of crime?) and perhaps more importantly, what animates and
makes possible psychological and behavioural change (or else how can we
hope to make meaningful efforts at rehabilitation, repair and improvement
of human lives?). Although the law is deeply involved with regulating
and responding to human behaviour, legal professionals are virtually
never exposed to formal or informed psychological literature, research, or
professional knowledge about human behaviour in their legal education or
ongoing professional training.
Adequately understanding trauma and its effects requires a coherent
and integrative framework that takes into account the nature of traumatic
experiences and helps legal professionals, community members and
service providers better understand, accept, and relate to people who have
and expand the thinking of people working within legal or other related
systems is through the provision of clear and comprehensive information
that explains the underlying psychological processes that drive complex
traumatic responses. This is best achieved by understanding trauma
through a “bio-psycho-social” lens and understanding trauma responses
in terms of their biological and physiological, psychological, and social
impacts.
Understanding trauma is best accomplished within a developmental
framework anchored in attachment theory so as to make sense of the
24. Some of these overview sections are adapted from Haskell & Randall, supra note 21.
25. William Harms, “Forging a New Field of Neuroscience” (22 April 2013), online: University of
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 511
complex adaptations people make in order to survive ongoing abuse,
violence, or neglect. Such an approach looks at how self-formation is
disorganized and shaped by ongoing abuse and trauma. This includes an
assessment of the neurobiological, cognitive, and emotional aspects of
development. A comprehensive framework must also take into account the
physiological and psychological levels on which trauma is experienced, as
well as the social context in which the trauma occurs.26
3. Types of post-traumatic stress: simple and complex or developmental
trauma
“Simple” and “complex” post-traumatic stresses are related but distinct
concepts (or diagnoses) used to describe responses to differing traumatic
events. What is described as “simple post-traumatic stress” (simple PTSD)
results from a one-time traumatic event such as an accident (for example,
a car crash), or an assault (for example, a stranger attack). “Complex
post-traumatic stress” (complex PTSD), on the other hand, is a form of
traumatic experiences.
It has become clear that simple post-traumatic stress resulting
from a one-time incident is markedly different from the complex set of
responses that follows chronic, multiple, or ongoing traumatic events.
Such events include chronic childhood abuse or prolonged experiences of
assault and violence in an intimate relationship, as, for example, violence
perpetrated by a spouse or caregiver. Complex post-traumatic stress is
multidimensional and pervasive because it is often the result of ongoing
damaging and neglectful experiences, which are sometimes compounded
by childhoods that lack consistent, predictable, and attuned parenting.
Individuals who have experienced multiple severe and frightening
events as either children or adults may have complex post-traumatic
stress and yet not have simple post-traumatic stress. It is not uncommon,
however, to experience both kinds of post-traumatic stress.27
Simple PTSD is primarily a neurophysiological response to an isolated
clusters. These are: re-experiencing phenomena, avoiding or numbing
responses, and hyper-arousal responses.
Re-experiencing phenomena can take the form of intrusive thoughts
and ruminations about the traumatic event, often experienced in the mind
26. See Haskell & Randall, supra note 21 for an elaboration of this idea.
27. Toni Luxenberg, Joseph Spinazzola & Bessel A van der Kolk, “Complex Trauma and Disorders
of Extreme Stress (DESNOS) Diagnosis, Part I: Assessment” (2001) 21 Directions in Psychiatry 373.
512 The Dalhousie Law Journal
sudden intrusive and vivid traumatic memories, all of which suddenly
surface in a traumatized person’s consciousness and often leave the person
feeling out of control.
Avoiding and numbing responses refer to a person’s attempt to avoid
reminders of the traumatic event, including places (like the location where
an assault took place), people, actions (like driving if the traumatic event
was a car accident), thoughts, or feelings associated with the traumatic
event. People who experience these responses often report becoming
emotionally numb, withdrawing from friends and family, and losing
interest in everyday activities.
Hyper-arousal describes a state of being overly alert to danger and
rarely relaxed or at ease. Hyper-arousal responses include a sense of being
sleeping, lack of concentration, being overly alert, or easily startled.
normal psychic reaction to an abnormal and threatening one-time event.
These are the key characteristics of what is described as “simple” post-
traumatic stress. The symptom clusters for “complex” and “developmental”
post-traumatic stress are more extensive, as discussed below.
Prolonged early childhood abuse changes life developmentally
in several domains of functioning, though of course the nature and
severity of these changes are contingent upon a range of external and
internal factors in a child’s life. Prolonged childhood abuse affects brain
development, attachment patterns, and the development of self-capacities,
most especially affecting regulation skills which are essential to coping
with life’s challenges and stresses.
relation to six categories or domains of core functioning. These are: affect
dysregulation; changes in consciousness, such as dissociation, altered
self-perception; alterations in relations with others, somatization, and
alterations in systems of meaning (a sense of hopelessness).
modulating emotion and impulses. Changes in consciousness refers to
the ways in which traumatized people can, at times, drift away, detaching
from immediate reality by “dissociation.” Alterations in self-perception
are very often expressed as feelings of deep shame, guilt, or, conversely,
an exaggerated sense of responsibility. The alterations in relationships
emotional connections with others, often associated with an inability to
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 513
trust others. Somatization refers to the manifestation of psychic pain in
the body and in physical illness. This is sometimes expressed as diffuse
physical pain, sometimes as particular conditions. Alterations in systems of
meaning describes a lost sense of purpose in life, which can be experienced
as overwhelming hopelessness.
4. Understanding trauma contextually: social context and justice
The term “trauma” describes the range of possible and typical responses
people may have to an extreme and overwhelming event or series of
events. While many people are not aware of the kinds of psychological
impacts of traumatizing experiences, it is important to recognize that these
trauma responses are normal.
Many traditional approaches, particularly in the mainstream disciplines
of psychiatry and psychology, tend to view the issue of trauma, and how
people experience trauma, at the micro level, in highly individualized and
decontextualized ways, stripped of broader social contexts, structures
and relationships which shape people’s lives, ideologies, choices, and
opportunities.
While it is important to understand how a particular individual’s life
experience and psychological functioning might be affected by the impact
of trauma, the traditional individualized approach to trauma disengages
from a broader awareness of the ways in which people’s experiences are
inextricably connected to their broader social contexts. In other words,
mainstream and traditional psychiatric and psychological approaches to the
study of trauma often tend to ignore or minimize the relevant and broader
social contexts and social relationships in which people’s experiences are
produced, shaped and lived.
A traditional trauma framework which fails to take note of social
note about trauma,
like any partial truth, the metaphor of trauma also has limitations and
unwanted connotations.…Current [traditional] trauma theory and therapy
tend to focus on the psychiatric disorder of post-traumatic stress disorder
may be profoundly transformed by massive trauma and abrogation of
human rights. These include issues of secure attachment and trust, belief
in a just world, a sense of connectedness to others, and a stable personal
and collective identity.28
28. Laurence J Kirmayer, Caroline L Tait & Cori Simpson, “The Mental Health of Aboriginal
Peoples in Canada: Transformations of Identity and Community” in Laurence J Kirmayer & Gail
Guthrie Valaskakis, eds, Healing Traditions: The Mental Health of Aboriginal Peoples of Canada
(Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009) 27.
514 The Dalhousie Law Journal
The loss of belief in a just world and an inability to enjoy connectedness
legacies of traumatic experience. Put differently, the loss of trust and hope
associated with trauma means that traumatized people are often unable
to create or sustain deep connections to others and, intimately related to
and in relationships. Clearly the experience of being violated, neglected,
or abused by people who are entrusted to caring for and keeping a child
safe is profoundly disorienting, can make relationships seem insecure
and unpredictable, and a sense of fairness virtually impossible. The same
losses in hope and trust apply to children living in other traumatizing
abuse. This loss of hope and trust is a crucial and often underappreciated
harmful effect of a traumatic life experience or series of experiences.
Attention to and integration of an analysis of the social and the
individual levels on which trauma and its effects are lived are essential
elements of more expansive and useful approaches to grasping the nature
of trauma in people’s lives. As we have observed elsewhere:
An exclusively individualized approach fails to account for the ways in
which social injustice, discrimination, and colonialism have systematic
and far-reaching effects on entire communities. A more adequate and
complete framework for understanding trauma and its impact, then,
needs to focus on the ways in which traumatic stress is experienced by
individuals, while also attending to the relevance of the social contexts
which shape this very experience.29
Both the individual and the social levels are important in understanding the
origins and alleviation of traumatic responses. Furthermore, individualized
experiences of trauma are typically shaped or even partially caused by
the impact of social problems on the lives of particular individuals but
also communities. An obvious example is found in the generations of
state sanctioned decimation of various First Nation communities through
colonial policies of assimilation, Aboriginal language destruction, the
forced removal of children from their families at residential schools and
the so-called 60s sweep, among others.30
justice, Howard Zehr comments on the need to pay attention to broader
29. Haskell & Randall, supra note 21.
30. See for example René Dussault & Georges Erasmus (chairs), Report of the Royal Commission
on Aboriginal Peoples (1996), online: Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada <http://
www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1307458586498/1307458751962>.
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 515
social problems and patterns of inequality in relation to trauma healing.
As he observes,
apply their perspectives and approaches to addressing root causes.31
There is also an important social justice element to responses to
traumas which are rooted not in natural disasters or catastrophes but in
disempowered individuals deal with trauma in their lives. Marginalized
and disempowered people are more often involved with the criminal
justice system, both as offenders and victims, than are people from more
must be taken into account in developing more sensitive, effective and
responsive trauma-informed justice intervention into the harms caused by
crime and wrongdoing.
II. Trauma, harms, and justice
1. Why is understanding trauma relevant to law?
Why is understanding trauma so important for people working within
law, and in particular, the criminal justice system? Given the widespread
problems of childhood abuse, violence and neglect, large numbers of
people are dealing with trauma responses, which often (not always) lead
entering the juvenile justice system have experienced trauma.32 The
Adverse Childhood Experiences study, one of the largest epidemiological
investigations ever conducted in North America to assess associations
between childhood maltreatment and health and well-being later in life,33
found that the economic costs of untreated trauma-related alcohol and
drug abuse were estimated at $161 billion in 2000.34
How and why people are capable of insight and behaviour change is a
complex area which is both seriously under-theorized and under-attended
31. Zehr, “Intersection,” supra note 9 at 25.
32. Justice Policy Institute, Healing Invisible Wounds: Why Investing in Trauma-Informed Care
for Children Makes Sense (2010), online: <http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/10-07_REP_
HealingInvisibleWounds_JJ-PS.pdf>.
33. Centre for Disease Control, “Adverse Childhood Experiences,” online: <http://www.cdc.gov/
ace/>.
34. National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, Trauma-Informed Care: A Call to
Arms, online: <http://www.thenationalcouncil.org/cs/traumainformed_care_a_call_to_arms>.
516 The Dalhousie Law Journal
to in law in general, as well as in restorative justice approaches to law. Most
areas of law are organized around simplistic assumptions about humans
assessments of their actions and the possible reactions to them. Criminal
law, in particular, operates on the assumption that deterrence dissuades
people from engaging in criminal behaviour by imposing penalties (such
as a criminal record and imprisonment) that they will want to avoid. In this
view, however, people’s choices to commit crimes must be either based
criminal conduct.
Research has demonstrated the interconnection between histories of
violence and abuse, traumatic experiences, and criminal behaviour.35 This
does not mean that violence and abuse in life creates or causes criminality
in a simplistic or linear way, or that those who commit crime can merely
“blame it on” their previous experiences of violence, abuse, or neglect.
Still, it does mean that there are complex interconnections between
people’s life experiences, opportunities, choices and chances, and their
personal histories, including trauma histories. As one researcher observes:
“child abuse and neglect, poverty, sexual molestation, and witnessing
violence are, among others, the most common risk factors for post-
traumatic reactions, aggression, and antisocial behaviour.”36
Research demonstrates that the vast majority of female offenders
have been physically or sexually abused both as children and adults.37 Of
38 A new report documents the
extremely high prevalence of trauma backgrounds of “detained youth,”
and the co-occurrence of post-traumatic stress and psychiatric disorders
in this population. In this report, the researchers found that of the research
sample, “92.5% of youth had experienced at least one trauma, 84% had
experienced more than one trauma, and 56.8% were exposed to trauma
35. It is important to note that what counts as “criminal conduct” differs vastly and requires critical
interrogation, as the term encompasses diverse and distinctly different kinds of behaviours ranging
from self-harm and addictions, to petty crimes of property which may arise from circumstances of
deprivation and poverty, to crimes of aggravated sexual assault and domestic violence, to manslaughter,
or premeditated homicide.
36. Vittoria Ardino, “Offending Behaviour: The Role of Trauma and PTSD” (2012) 3:10 Eur J
Psychotraumatol 1.
37.
What is it and Why is it Important?” (1998), online: The Center for Gender and Justice <http://www.
stephaniecovington.com/pdfs/13.pdf>.
38. Ann Jennings, “Models for Developing Trauma-Informed Behavioural Health Systems and
www.theannainstitute.org/MDT2.pdf>.
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 517
six or more times.”39 The researchers further discovered that, “among
participants with PTSD, ninety-three per cent had at least one comorbid
psychiatric disorder. Among males, having any psychiatric diagnosis
with the law, mental health issues, and trauma backgrounds in the lives
of young offenders. As the authors of this study conclude, the “nation’s
delinquent children are among its most traumatized. The resources used to
punish them must be balanced with the resources needed to treat them.”40
2. What does “trauma-informed” mean?
In a trauma-informed system, trauma is viewed not as a single, discrete
core of an individual’s identity. The far-reaching impact, and the attempts
who the trauma survivor is.41
The term “trauma-informed” is relatively new and can be used to describe
a commitment to providing human services and the institutional contexts
which recognize and understand the extent and impact of trauma in
people’s lives, aim to uncover and understand the complex root causes
of violence and abuse, and strive to provide programs and services
which avoid retraumatizing people while supporting their movement
towards resilience, recovery and wellness.42 The philosophical orientation
embodied in a trauma-informed approach can apply to work with victims,
offenders, and all those affected by traumatic events, including the broader
communities in which victims and offenders live.
What does it mean to be trauma-informed? Trauma-informed ap-
proaches require that we reconsider, evaluate, and integrate an understanding
39. The Northwestern Juvenile Project through the US Department of Justice is a longitudinal study
of youth detained at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center in Chicago, IL: see, Karen
M Abram et al, “PTSD, Trauma, and Comorbid Psychiatric Disorders in Detained Youth” (2013),
pdf>.
40. Ibid at 10.
41. Harris & Fallot, supra note 2.
42. See, for example, the materials developed by the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma
& Mental Health (NCDVTMH), advocating a trauma-informed approach to specialized domestic
violence programs: “Trauma-Informed Domestic Violence Services: Understanding the Framework
and Approach,” online: <http://www.vawnet.org/special-collections/DVTraumaInformed-Overview>.
See also, National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health (NCDVTMH), “Thinking
about Trauma in the Context of DV Advocacy: An Integrated Approach,” online: National Online
Resource Center on Violence Against Women <http://www.vawnet.org/Assoc_Files_VAWnet/
ThinkingAboutTrauma.pdf>.
518 The Dalhousie Law Journal
of the role that violence and abuse plays in people’s lives, whether as
victims or offenders (and this does not suggest that there is no meaningful
distinction between these categories). A trauma-informed perspective
recognizes and understands the complexities of trauma responses and,
when these occur early in life, grasps their broad developmental impacts.
Finally, a trauma-informed perspective uses that understanding to develop
responses and processes that take into consideration the vulnerabilities and
needs of survivors of traumatic events. A trauma-informed approach strives
to deliver services and interventions in a way that avoids inadvertently
retraumatizing people and doing further harm. Given the criminal justice
system’s dismal record regarding its treatment of victim-witnesses and
offenders, this trauma-informed approach applied to processing crime can
only be a step forward which offers at least the opening for more creative,
and hopefully more transformative, interventions into the lives of people
affected by crime.
psychiatrists, social workers, and psychologists trained in the traditional
frameworks may underestimate the role that abuse and neglect play both
in respect to mental health and substance abuse. We now know, however,
that early abuse and neglect can have diverse and far-reaching effects on
attachment, brain development, emotion regulation, and cognition, and
that early abuse can disrupt development at different stages, even when
the abuse has stopped. In fact, the term “developmental trauma,” also
sometimes referred to as “complex trauma,” was constructed precisely to
better capture and describe the range of ways in which chronic traumatic
experiences shape psychological and neurological development and
functioning.43
It is often the case that people who have endured childhood abuse
and neglect develop an array of problems throughout their lives. These
understand how abuse and trauma can shape and impair a person’s capacities
and, in turn, limit his or her life opportunities. Many professionals, and in
effects shape development and reverberate throughout a person’s life. If we
are to hope for more effective legal and social interventions, particularly in
areas of law which deal with interpersonal and family relationships (such
as family law), as well as crime, it is critically important to understand
43. See, for example, Bessel A van der Kolk et al, “Disorders of Extreme Stress: The Empirical
Foundation of a Complex Adaptation to Trauma” (2005) 18:5 J Traumatic Stress 389.
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 519
the dynamic interplay between the traumatic stressors and the complex
and often diverse adaptations that traumatized people develop in order to
survive. Trauma-informed approaches assist in exactly this and thereby
allow for service delivery and interventions which are more attuned, more
effective and even more humane.
3. Restorative justice, harms, and relationships
Restorative justice is a term which has been applied to a wide range
of practices and principles, all of which are in some way concerned to
extent that it is possible, restoring and repairing damaged relationships.
One of the distinguishing features of restorative justice is its explicit
insistence that harms associated with wrongdoing or crimes extend beyond
the individual and immediate victims to the circle of people in the victims’
lives, as well as to the broader community. In addition to articulating a
theory of justice, restorative justice is an approach, or set of approaches,
to making reparations following crimes (or other wrongdoing) “that
focuses on healing the harm done, promoting accountability and personal
responsibility, and encouraging the active participation of the victim,
offender and other concerned parties.”44
Restorative justice has been described in many ways as: “peacebuilding,”
a method of responding to crimes and other wrongdoing, a method of
45 a philosophy, a practice, and
an approach. In terms that capture the connection between restorative justice
practices, and broader social justice, Braithwaite sweepingly describes it
as “a social movement about the politics of reconciliation in contexts that
vary from the care and protection of children in families, to education, to
race relations, and, more importantly, peace building.”46 This approach
emphasizes restitution and restoration in the relationships between the
offender, the victim(s) and the broader community. As Howard Zehr
explains, “[w]ith its focus on interpersonal relationships, on human need
and on collaborative, problem-solving processes, restorative justice might
47
In order to understand its distinguishing features and norms, restorative
justice is often contrasted with retributive justice, which emphasizes the
44. Barton Poulson, “A Third Voice: A Review of Empirical Research on the Psychological
Outcomes of Restorative Justice” (2003) 1 Utah L Rev 167.
45. Zehr, “Intersection,” supra note 9.
46. John Braithwaite, “Narrative and ‘Compulsory Compassion’” (2006) 31:2 Law & Social Inquiry
425 at 429.
47. Zerh, “Intersection,” supra note 9 at 23.
520 The Dalhousie Law Journal
importance of punishment and the idea that wrongdoers should face their
“just deserts.”48
In contrast to the more top-down criminal justice system, which
focusses on imposing punishment as an expression of retributive justice,
restorative justice is reparative, and, in some more robust articulations,
transformative in its view of justice. In developing a conceptual framework
to describe and explain a restorative model of justice, Jennifer Llewellyn
a distinct theory of justice.49
In contrast to the retributive model of justice organizing the traditional
criminal justice system, and the idea of corrective justice which is often
claimed to be foundational to private law,50 restorative justice conceives
of justice as “restoration.” Contrary to the idea that restorative justice
is backward looking, which is a common misapprehension based on an
overemphasis on the word “restore,” Llewellyn and Howse clarify that
“while the beginning point of restorative justice is a state of wrong that
has disturbed the relationship between the wrongdoer and the sufferer of
wrongdoing, its endpoint may be quite different than the status quo ante.”51
Instead, the idea of restoration in restorative justice is what is required to
restore relationships which have been disrupted or harmed by wrongdoing
claims that what is required to satisfy this moral intuition, that ‘something’
that must be done is the establishment or re-establishment of equality.”52
Put differently, restorative justice is, in some articulations, premised on
a relational theory of justice.53 Relationships between people are at the
centre of restorative justice, “such that each party has their rights to dignity,
54
In terms of responding to crime, restorative justice “comprises the
idea that because crime hurts, justice should heal, and especially heal
relationships.”55 This is clearly compatible with a trauma-informed
48. See, for example, Michael T Cahill, “Retributive Justice in the Real World” (2007) 85 Wash U L
Rev 815.
49. See Jennifer J Llewellyn & Robert L Howse, Restorative Justice: A Conceptual Framework
(Ottawa: Law Commission of Canada, Ottawa, 1999); See also Llewellyn, “Thinking Relationally,”
supra note 12.
50. Ernest Weinrib is among the most well-known proponents of this view, see The Idea of Private
Law, revised ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) and Corrective Justice (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012).
51. Llewellyn & Howse, supra note 49 at 2.
52. Ibid at 38.
53. See Llewellyn on this issue, in particular her article, “Thinking Relationally,” supra note 12.
54. Llewellyn & Howse, supra note 49 at 39.
55. John Braithwaite, “Encourage Restorative Justice” (2007) 6:4 Crim & Public Policy 689.
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 521
perspective on understanding harms, which seek to respond to people
in ways that both recognize and take account of traumatic responses
and their developmental consequences, and which avoids harming or
retraumatizing them in delivering a service or implementing a policy. The
values which inform restorative justice, therefore, are highly consonant
with the principles of a trauma-informed approach.
4. Why must a restorative approach to doing justice be trauma-
informed?
As a form of legal intervention, though with applications and interventions
wrongs between people. While we are arguing in this paper that all legal
institutions and processes can offer a more robust expression of justice by
being trauma-informed, restorative justice in particular is an approach to
justice which, in order to realize its own express ambitions, must work
from a trauma-informed perspective. Furthermore, as an approach to law,
restorative justice is perhaps best situated among legal approaches, to
engaging a trauma-informed perspective and demonstrating its relevance
Restorative justice is fundamentally concerned with understanding
justice, just results, and just processes from a perspective animated
by a concern to restore and establish peaceful, respectful and equal
relationships. Being trauma-informed means being psychologically
literate in a sophisticated way, one which is cognizant of the trajectories
and complexities of human development and the ways in which abuse,
neglect, violence, and other traumatic experiences interfere with and
constrict human relational capacities and human neurobiology. The
limits and challenges faced by traumatized people in establishing
peaceful, respectful, and equal relationships are best grasped through a
trauma-informed perspective, which also allows for the development of
interventions and strategies that rebuild damaged capacities.
The move towards adopting trauma-informed principles, institutional
practices and interventions into people’s lives is becoming increasingly
in contemporary society, law should also begin to be conceived of and
practiced from a perspective which is trauma-informed. As an approach to
relationships, and indeed which places relationships at the centre of its
theory and processes, restorative justice in its legal expression is most
522 The Dalhousie Law Journal
obviously receptive to work which avoids retraumatizing people and
grasps the role of trauma. Restorative justice and trauma-informed work,
III. How trauma-informed approaches enhance justice system responses
to crime
1. The role of justice in resolving trauma
56
If the loss of belief in a just world is an effect of trauma, resolving trauma
responses must entail, to some extent at least, the ability to see justice
done. This does not entail conceiving of justice in terms of the reductive
eye for an eye” philosophy espouses. Instead, it is a perspective that sees
justice in more expansive and complex terms.
These expanded terms for what counts as justice include an adequate
including the victim’s friends, family, and broader community. These
terms also include a requirement that the offender grapple with the harms
caused by the wrongdoing, acknowledge them, and aim to make repair.
Indeed, this is precisely where a fundamental consonance between trauma-
informed approaches and restorative justice resides.
that must be dealt with.57 Appreciating the causes and impacts of the
injustice is enhanced by working from a trauma-informed perspective. In
broad strokes, the potential advantages of engaging a trauma-informed
restorative justice approach to wrongdoing are highlighted in the following
sections.
2. Trauma-informed approaches and victims
The relevance and importance of taking a trauma-informed approach to
those who are victims of crimes and harmed by wrongdoing is perhaps
most evident and easy to understand. Indeed, one of the important and
persistent critiques of the criminal justice system, most sharply acute
and well documented in cases of sexual and domestic violence, is the
56. Zehr, “Intersection,” supra note 9 at 24.
57. John Braithwaite, “Doing Justice Intelligently in Civil Society” (2006) 62:2 Journal of Social
Issues 393 at 397.
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 523
revictimization of victim-witnesses, a process which is sometimes also
aptly described as retraumatization.58
The aftereffects of violence and abuse on traumatized people’s
that many people develop after being repeatedly hurt in relationships
(which may include addictions and substance abuse), can make the task
women whose lives have been harmed by experiences of sexual or physical
abuse in childhood and in intimate relationships.
As Haskell emphasizes in her work in this area, victims often are not
equipped to explain their own psychological responses and coping.59 They
may not recognize the role of abuse-related trauma in the development of
some of their own severe responses or ways of managing.60 What might
appear as “inconsistencies” in the way a victim reacts or tells her story
in a service context or a legal proceeding is actually very often a typical,
predictable, and normal way of responding to life threatening events and
coping with and remembering traumatic experiences.
Understanding these complexities of victim responses to
traumatization, which are often counterintuitive to popular beliefs about
how “real” victims should behave, is one of the fundamental challenges
the crimes of child sexual abuse, sexual assault, and domestic violence
pose for the criminal justice system.61 As Haskell argues elsewhere, the
onus is and should be on the service provider to be trained to screen for
abuse and violence in women’s lives and grasp the complex effects and
dynamics this most likely entails.62
Assaulted women’s “victim” responses are often perceived as
counterintuitive and this affects their credibility in legal proceedings, as well
as how they are responded to within legal and other systems, phenomena
58. See, for example, Judith Lewis Herman, “The Mental Health of Crime Victims: Impact of Legal
Intervention” (2003) 16:2 Journal of Traumatic Stress 159; Judith Daylen, Wendy van Tongeren
Harvey & Dennis O’Toole, Trauma, Trials, and Transformation (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2006).
59. See, Lori Haskell, First Stage Trauma Treatment (Toronto: CAMH, University of Toronto,
2003).
60. See, Lori Haskell, “Violence, Victimization & Trauma: The Complexity of Trauma Responses”
(Invited Presentation to Provincial Crown Attorneys, Vancouver, BC, 24 April 2013).
61. See Jennifer Gentile Long, “Explaining Counterintuitive Victim Behavior in Domestic Violence
and Sexual Assault Cases” (2006) 1:4 The Voice, online: National Center for the Prosecution of
Violence Against Women <http://www.ndaa-apri.org/publications/newsletters/the_voice_contents.
html>; Melanie Randall, “Sexual Assault Law, Credibility, and ‘Ideal Victims’: Consent, Resistance,
and Victim Blaming” (2010) 22 Can J Women & Law 3970.
62. Lori Haskell, “Violence, Victimization & Trauma: The Complexity of Trauma Responses”
(Invited Presentation to Abbotsford Police Services, Abbotsford, BC, 23 April 2013).
524 The Dalhousie Law Journal
which are well documented in the research and legal literature.63 With its
express focus on repairing relationships and taking the needs of victims
seriously, restorative approaches to justice necessarily need to be equipped
to facilitate processes which incorporate a deep acknowledgement of these
effects and are organized and led by people with adequate expertise and
training.
A trauma-informed approach requires educating legal actors and
service providers about these dynamics, allowing for better understanding
of the psychological impacts of crimes upon victims, and facilitating more
sensitive and appropriate interventions, responses, and accommodations
in the process of dealing with these crimes.
Many people whose lives have been affected by traumatic events have
the impacts reverberate across various domains, including affective,
sexual, and psychological coping. Restorative justice practitioners, by
inviting victims to participate in a process which requires preparing them
to be able to articulate both the harms they have experienced as well as
their associated needs, may be a challenge. A trauma-informed framework
what they might need by way of support to move through it. Through a
trauma-informed approach to working with those harmed by crimes of
abuse and violence, victims can be assisted with developing a meaningful
narrative about the events, are validated and better understood, and are
provided a safe and respectful context in which to process the event, its
3. Trauma-informed approaches and offenders
of crime and the associated enhanced understanding of the effects of
victimization may be readily apparent, but a trauma-informed approach to
than those traditional approaches which are not trauma-informed. If we
are to take the ideas of accountability and rehabilitation seriously, we need
more sophisticated appreciations of what causes offending, as well as
what allows for assisting people develop meaningful appreciation of the
responsibility and rehabilitation.
63. See, for example, Daylen, van Tongeren Harvey & O’Toole, supra note 58; Gentile Long, supra
note 61; James Ptacek, Battered Women in the Courtroom: The Power of Judicial Responses (Boston:
Northeastern UP, 1999).
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 525
A trauma-informed approach provides “a more holistic framework for
understanding the ways in which the biological, emotional, cognitive and
life,”64
self and others, including conduct which is criminal. This kind of approach
is obviously pertinent to the treatment of offenders both in general and in
prison contexts, where a nascent move towards this kind of perspective is
beginning to take hold in some jurisdictions. As one set of researchers on
corrections observes:
good correctional practice requires environments that are highly
structured and safe, with predictable and consistent limits, incentives and
boundaries, as well as swift and certain consequences such that inmates
are treated fairly and equally. These same practices can provide the type
of stability trauma survivors need to learn new information and skills
that promote trauma recovery.65
Without threat of traditional criminal punishment and loss of connection to
others, perpetrators of crime have a better chance of developing empathy
and the capacity to mentalize, which describes the ability to grasp one’s
own thoughts and mental processes (further discussed below). This is
most emphatically not the same as suggesting that offenders should escape
accountability for their actions through this approach; to the contrary, a
trauma-informed restorative justice approach has the potential to impose
much greater and more personal and intimate forms of accountability for
and participate in constructing their own sanctions.
Trauma-informed restorative justice processes undoubtedly have
particular relevance for dealing with cases of gendered violence, which
66 In terms of dealing with the
justice approach builds on sanctions which abusive men reported they
most fear. For example, research on domestic violence offenders shows
that only a minority of batterers feared criminal punishment or job loss
(thirty-six and twenty-seven per cent, respectively), whereas they believed
64. National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health, “Thinking about Trauma in
the Context of DV Advocacy: An Integrated Approach,” online: Women’s UN Report Network <www.
wunrn.com/news/2013/04_13/04_29/042913_trauma.htm> at 1.
65. Niki Miller & Lisa Najavits, “Creating Trauma-Informed Correctional Care: A Balance of Goals
and Environment” (2012) 3:10 Eur J Psychotraumatol.
66. See Melanie Randall, “Restorative Justice and Gendered Violence? From Vaguely Hostile
Skeptic to Cautious Convert: Why Feminists Should Critically Engage with Restorative Approaches
to Law” (2013) 36 Dal LJ 461.
526 The Dalhousie Law Journal
that the major cost of a domestic violence arrest would be self-stigma,
family stigma, and broad social disapproval.67
When under intense threat, that is when being criminally prosecuted,
the focus for most offenders is on self and self-preservation, not on gaining
an understanding of other. A trauma-informed restorative process lends
itself to a greater chance of what is called mentalization.68
own mind and mental processes and to have insight into one’s interior
emotional world, understanding the what and why of one’s feelings.69
A crucial aspect of mentalization is that connected to one’s ability to
grasp one’s own mental processes, one is also able to grasp the mind of
another person. Mentalization is a crucial capacity for emotional and self
regulation.
This is a skill which most, perhaps all, offenders sorely lack. To the
extent that violating and harming another person requires disconnection
necessarily obliterated. Yet mentalization—which is something more than
empathy—is a necessary part of understanding the experience of others.
Clearly this is an essential skill if offenders are to begin to appreciate
and deeply acknowledge the effect of their wrongdoing on others, and
understand the nature of the harms they have caused.
are present for that particular offender, which may include, for example,
substance abuse or unresolved child abuse, leading to disconnection and
re-enacting. Rather than uniformity, and standardization of responses to
all offenders (which has not been shown to reduce recidivism or facilitate
rehabilitation), a trauma-informed restorative justice approach can allow
for greater tailoring and nuance in responding to what offenders need in
order to take responsibility and make change.
67. Kirk R Williams & Richard Hawkins, “The Meaning of Arrest for Wife Assault” (1989) 27:1
Criminology 163.
68. See, Jon G Allen, Peter Fonagy & Anthony Bateman, Mentalizing in Clinical Practice (Arlington,
VA: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2008).
69. See Jon G Allen & Peter Fonagy, eds, Handbook of Mentalization-Based Treatment (Chichester:
John Wiley, 2006).
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 527
4.
community: from isolation to social connection
In a trauma-informed system, practitioners assume that when a trauma
has occurred, it changes the rules of the game. An individual constructs
a sense of self, a sense of others and a belief about the world that
This then informs other life choices and guides the development of
particular coping strategies. The impact of trauma is thus felt throughout
an individual’s life in areas of functioning that may seem quite far
removed from the trauma, as well as in areas that are more obviously
connected to the trauma.70
Information and education about trauma, particularly complex trauma
and the newly developed category of “developmental trauma,” must
be central components of effective approaches to helping individuals
and communities heal from traumatic events, including crimes and
interpersonal wrongdoing. A trauma-informed approach to restorative
justice practices and processes, therefore, should necessarily undertake
psycho-educational programs to make community members more aware
of the nature of trauma responses, the complexities of people’s coping
styles, and the possible constitutive elements of healing and resolution in
the face of trauma. This clearly enhances the likelihood of more effective
and informed community participation.
This kind of information, and the consciousness-raising and enhanced
understanding provided by a trauma-informed approach can assist
community members in both appreciating the harms of victimization
and traumatic responses and in better understanding how to respond to
offenders. As Braithwaite notes, “the existence of a wider plurality of
voices in the conference circle…means that there are better prospects
for creative problem-solving ideas to emerge,”71 and if the voices are
more educated about trauma, victimization, and its impacts, they will
necessarily have more informed contributions to this process. A trauma-
informed approach, therefore, is also relevant to thinking about what
more psychologically sensitive accountability and rehabilitative efforts
might look like for offenders. Furthermore, a trauma-informed restorative
justice approach enhances the chances for greater and more meaningful
accountability through community and family engagement, supervision
and oversight of offenders.
70. Maxine Harris & Roger D Fallot, “Envisioning a Trauma-Informed Service System: A Vital
Paradigm Shift” (2001) 89 New Directions for Mental Health Services 3.
71. Braithwaite, supra note 57 at 396.
528 The Dalhousie Law Journal
5. Community, attachments, and relationships: contexts for repair and
resolution
experiences associated with human wrongdoing is the damage to the
capacities to trust and maintain relationships. In psychological terms,
attachment refers to the capacity to form and maintain healthy emotional
relationships with others. The traumatic harms which reverberate through
people’s ability to form and maintain relationships can be understood as
“disrupted attachments.”72
These attachments can be understood at both the micro, or individual
levels, and the macro, or community and social levels. As Zehr astutely
observes, “the social as well as well as the individual dimensions of trauma
must be addressed as part of…restorative justice processes.”73
colonialism and its reverberations through the lives of Aboriginal peoples
at the community and individual levels, as we argue elsewhere,
A more expansive, nuanced and dynamic view of healing from trauma is
necessary. This view recognizes that healing is not a static state which is
achieved, but instead is better understood as a dynamic and sometimes
lifelong process. This view recognizes that given that the most profound
harms of trauma are relational, and revolve around attachments, the
nature of healing from trauma must also be relational.74
What we have described as “disrupted attachments” are fundamental
elements of trauma responses. These disruptions to attachment capacities
problems with attachment profoundly affect a traumatized individual’s
relationship to her or his self, as well as to others. The damage to attachment
capacities in traumatized people can be thought of as relational harms.
At the broader social and community levels, disrupted attachments can
also describe the experiential disconnect between traumatized peoples and
their sense of belonging to a larger social group, that of being connected
to a broader community. More attention to this level of analysis is needed
in the broader trauma literature to expand our understanding of the social
and collective dimensions of traumatic harms.
72. The term “disrupted attachments” is the title of an article we wrote to analyse the individual and
community level trauma responses experienced by the colonization of the First Nations peoples of
Canada. See Haskell & Randall, supra note 21.
73. Zehr, “Intersections,” supra note 9 at 25.
74. Haskell & Randall, supra note 21.
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 529
If one of the core harms of trauma is disruption to attachments, then
restoration of secure and healthy attachments and relationships is the
context for resolving traumatic damage.
Healing from trauma takes place through connection, through developing
and experiencing healthy attachments. These attachments can be
individual but must also be fostered at the level of the community. To
the extent that disrupted attachments are a core harm of complex trauma,
restored and healthy attachments, to self, to others and to community, are
fundamental parts of healing from trauma.75
The resolution of trauma for an individual and for traumatized communities
requires restoration of connection, to self and to others. One of the
important and innovative components of restorative justice approaches to
justice is the insistence on active community involvement, on identifying
the community as a stakeholder in the process.
A trauma-informed community response and engagement with
restorative processes to deal with crimes and wrongdoing, therefore,
criminal justice system, which is more punitive than rehabilitative and
focuses on the offender in relation to the state. As Braithwaite observes,
There can be no justice in a world without connectedness and empathy;
infrastructure of security around human relationships that can only be
guaranteed by institutions of justice.76
6. Creating shared narratives about crime, harms, and restoration:
narrative repair and justice
Narratives are the stories we tell to make sense of ourselves, our lives
and the situations we encounter and confront. In law, narratives tell the
identifying the pertinent legal categories, and framing the legal issue in need
of a remedy. In resolving crimes or other forms of wrongdoing amongst
people, an essential part of achieving resolution is the development of
shared narratives about what happened, why it did and what needs to be
component of justice.
The connection between understanding, deliberative democracy,
narratives, and justice has been explored in the important work of Iris
75. Ibid at 89.
76. Braithwaite, supra note 57 at 402.
530 The Dalhousie Law Journal
Young, notably in her book Inclusion and Democracy.77 Young describes
narratives and storytelling as devices for “giving voice to the kinds of
experience which often go unheard in legal discussions and courtroom
settings.”78 In line with the scholarship which explores storytelling for
social change,79 Young explains that narratives “can be an important bridge
between the mute experience of being wronged and political arguments
about justice.”80 Tying in restorative justice, Braithwaite points out that
“just as psychotherapy can be a form of narrative repair when people
cannot construct an adaptive story about their worries, restorative justice
can be about restorying lives in disarray because of a crime.”81
and crime requires a shared narrative about what happened, and, if
possible, why it happened. This indeed, is the biggest and perhaps most
essential piece of healing and resolution; it is the foundation upon which
meaningful and useful remedies can be built.
wrongdoing of developing meaningful narratives, which he describes as
“truth-telling,” as:
An important element in healing or transcending the experience of
crime is an opportunity to tell their story of what happened. Indeed, it
is often important to retell this many times. There are good therapeutic
reasons for this: part of the trauma of crime is the way it upsets our
views of ourselves and our world, our life-stories. Transcendence of
this experience means “re-storying” one’s life by telling the story in
Often too it is important for them to tell this story to the ones who caused
this harm and to have them understand the impact of their actions.82
A restorative justice approach to responding to crime and wrongdoing
allows for the construction of narratives which move beyond those that
because they include the voices and analysis of the victim, the community,
77. Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
78. Ibid at c 2.
79. See, for example, Lee Anne Bell, Storytelling for Social Justice: Connecting Narrative and The
Arts in Antiracist Teaching (New York: Routledge, 2010); Marie-Claire Picher, “Democratic Process
and the Theater of the Oppressed” (2007) 116 New Directions for Adult & Continuing Education
79; Joseph E Davis, ed, Stories of Change: Narrative and Social Movements (Albany: SUNY Press,
2002).
80. Young, supra note 77 at 72.
81. John Braithwaite, “Building Legitimacy through Restorative Justice” in Tom R Tyler, ed,
Legitimacy and Criminal Justice: International Perspectives (New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
2009) 146 at 152-153.
82. Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Restorative Justice (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2001) at 13.
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 531
and the offender about the what and why of what happened. This
approach allows for the construction of a more expansive and complete
narrative about both the wrong and the remedy. Given restorative justice’s
insistence on involvement of all parties affected by wrongdoing, victims,
offenders, and their immediate and broader communities, it is an approach
to constructing richer, more complete, and expansive narratives about the
creation, causes and impacts of wrongdoing and the associated harms, as
well as about the possibilities for repair and resolution. A deeper recognition
narratives about traumatic events, their effects and their resolution.
A trauma-informed approach to justice in relation to crimes and
wrongdoing, therefore, allows for the creation of more psychologically
literate and nuanced accounts of what happened and why, the nature of
the harms, the nature of trauma and resolving the traumatic impacts. A
trauma-informed restorative justice approach yields the possibility of the
creation of richer, more multi-vocal accounts of the harms associated with
wrongdoing, the causes and impact of it, and what is required to remedy it.
Conclusion
Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.
Not only can trauma be healed, but with appropriate guidance and
support, it can be transformative. Trauma has the potential to be one of the
and evolution. How we handle trauma (as individuals, communities and
how or even whether we will survive as a species.83
Legal responses to social problems can only be improved and strengthened
when guided by an enhanced appreciation of the complexities of human
psychology. 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. It means opening up
traditional retributivist approaches to crime and justice.
There is a profound consonance between the values and principles
which animate trauma-informed approaches to working with people, and
the foundational goals of legal approaches described as restorative justice.
The term “trauma-informed” describes a commitment to providing services
83. Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences
(Berkley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1997) at 2.
532 The Dalhousie Law Journal
impact of trauma in people’s lives. Trauma-informed services expressly
aim to deliver services and interventions which avoid retraumatizing, all
the while supporting movement towards recovery and wellness in self
and in relation to others. Restorative justice is concerned with what is
sometimes described as “right relations,”84 a concept which speaks to the
need to repair relationships harmed by wrongdoing. As one restorative
justice scholar puts it, “until right-relation has been restored, through some
reparative act, justice has not transpired.”85
Restorative justice is centrally concerned with restoring and repairing
some other disruption. Trauma-informed work recognizes that healing
from traumatic events can only occur in relationships. Trauma-informed
work also recognizes that healthy relationships are essential to the
development and expression of human capacities. Traumatic responses
are deeply organized around disruption and disconnection.86 While each
person must mobilize internal resources for their own recovery from
traumatic experiences, the process cannot be undertaken in isolation. If
trauma is a “disconnective disorder,”87 then its resolution cannot happen
without reconnection to and with others. This speaks to relationships, both
personal and intimate, and more broadly, at the level of our various micro
and macro communities.
While trauma-informed principles and practices are most often
applied in mental health and social service settings, there is an increasing
and important recognition that this approach is also highly suited to work
in diverse institutional contexts such as prisons and correction services,88
public health, child welfare systems, and workplaces.89 As a powerful
84. While this idea in some iterations of restorative justice has Christian origins, it can be understood
in secular terms and, in our view, should be.
85. Gerry Johnstone, Inaugural Lecture (Delivered at The Middleton Hall, University of Hull, 11
October 2004), online: University of Hull <http://www2.hull.ac.uk/fass/docs/Law-inauguraljohnstone.
doc> at 14.
86. For an analysis of trauma in relationship to Aboriginal peoples, see Haskell & Randall, supra
note 21.
87. See Ellen McGrath, “Recovering from Trauma,” Psychology Today (1 November 2001), online:
Psychology Today <http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200308/recovering-trauma>.
88. Miller & Najavits, supra note 65; Tina Maschi et al, “Trauma and Life Event Stressors among
Young and Older Adult Prisoners” (2011) 17:2 J Correct Health Care 160.
89. See, for example, Susan J Ko et al, “Creating Trauma-Informed Systems: Child Welfare,
Education, First Responders, Health Care, Juvenile Justice” (August 2008) 39:4 Professional
Psychology: Research & Practice 396; Sandra L Bloom, “The Sanctuary Model: A Operating System
for Living Organizations” in Noreen Tehrani, ed, Managing Trauma in the Workplace: Supporting
Workers and Organizations (London: Routledge, 2010) at 235-251; Sandra L Bloom, “Trauma-
organized Systems and Parallel Process” in Noreen Tehrani, ed, ibid at 139-153.
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Law… 533
institution in society, law regularly encounters and deals with people, both
as victims and offenders, whose lives have been shaped and harmed by
traumatic events. While it may not be the role of law to “heal” those harmed
by crime, law does represent itself as playing a crucial role in creating the
parameters around acceptable human conduct, and creating the conditions
for a just and law-abiding society in which people can expect to have
their rights and freedoms respected. If law in general, and the criminal
its practices and processes should begin from an enhanced appreciation
of human psychology, human capacities, and how traumatic events shape
and disrupt these. A trauma-informed approach to a restorative approach
to law provides precisely this necessary starting point.
