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It’s hard to imagine a more senseless act.

On June 1, 2002, 75-year-old Robert Stanley was killed when a basketball-sized boulder crashed through the windshield of the charter bus he was driving. The rock had been dumped over the side of a Whitemud Drive pedestrian bridge as a prank by two teenagers. It would be years before police tracked them down and charged them with manslaughter.

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When Caroline Gosling sat in on a community conference that was sentencing one of the teens, something surprising happened. Instead of anger, the meeting ended with hugs and handshakes, and something approaching understanding between Stanley’s family and the one who had caused them so much pain.

That moment, and others like it, convinced Gosling of the value of restorative justice.

“If you talk to anybody who’s had to directly face somebody they’ve harmed and talk about what they did and listen … a lot of people will say that’s far tougher than spending time in jail,” said Gosling, who is now chairwoman of the Alberta Restorative Justice Association.