Restorative justice helped me turn my life around — and it started with one drum

This First Person article is the experience of Ruby Harry, who lives in Vancouver. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ .

I've spent many years inside correctional institutions, moving from maximum to medium security.

When people talk about justice, they often focus on punishment. But real justice, the kind that heals, is something different.

For me, it began with a process set out in Section 84 of Canada’s Corrections and Conditional Release Act: Release into Indigenous Community. It gave me a reason to believe that coming home was possible.

Tl’etinqox t’in will always be home to me. I was raised in culture by my grandparents near Williams Lake, B.C. My granny was a powerful medicine woman whom I saw heal people through her work. As