discursive essay on restorative justice

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The promise — and problem — of restorative justice

Who is restorative justice restoring?

by Jerusalem Demsas

Part of our series on America’s struggle for forgiveness .

Defining forgiveness is still a matter of great debate , but philosophers ground the concept in two things: Forgiveness requires one person to have caused another harm and for the victim to forswear revenge or bad feelings toward their transgressor.

That leaves a lot more unsaid than it clarifies. Is the purpose of forgiveness to get back to normal? What are the power relations inherent in asking for and granting forgiveness? Who has the authority to forgive? Most importantly, why is forgiveness necessary?

The rise of restorative justice programs has introduced the concept of forgiveness — usually kept far away from America’s courtrooms — to the criminal justice system. While forgiveness is not the focus of these programs, its potential fills the air as victim, offender, and community members all meet in the same place.

These programs are alternatives to the traditional sentencing models and offer an opportunity for victims, offenders, and members of their respective communities to meet and, ideally, repair harm, answer lingering questions, and restore broken bonds.

But restorative justice’s answers to forgiveness’s thorniest questions and its relationship to the concept more broadly are up in the air. While forgiveness is widely seen as both virtuous and healing, the specter of forgiveness that hangs above restorative justice proceedings can be a hollow and fragile imitation of the real thing, and it carries with it the potential to reinforce cycles of violence.

What is restorative justice?

There is no one definitive answer to this question. Restorative justice is a burgeoning philosophical framework that asks people to rethink the best way to respond to harmful behavior. Perhaps the most expansive definition comes from Griffith University criminologist Kathleen Daly, who calls restorative justice “a set of ideals about justice that assumes a generous, empathetic, supportive, and rational human spirit.”

Restorative justice is “a set of ideals about justice that assumes a generous, empathetic, supportive, and rational human spirit”

Criminologist Howard Zehr, the “ grandfather of restorative justice ,” began his work in the 1970s for two main reasons: The harsh, punitive, and counterproductive ways that the criminal justice system often responds to offenders and the growing anger that victims are often entirely shut out of the criminal justice process.

“We were really concerned that victims were not only being left out of the justice process, but they were re-traumatized by it. So we wanted to provide a better experience and more options for victims,” Zehr explained in an interview published by Eastern Mennonite University, where he founded the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding in 2015. “Accountability is understanding the harm you’ve caused and doing something to make it right.”

Restorative justice has spurred the development of private and public programs within schools and universities that seek to apply restorative justice principles to conflicts that arise within these institutions. Even more crucially, there are restorative justice programs that seek to replace or reform existing practices within the criminal justice system; state-sanctioned programs now exist in the vast majority of American states.

America’s struggle for forgiveness

Restorative justice is not a fact-finding process and so it cannot in its current form replace the adversarial justice system, which seeks to determine whether the accused is guilty. Its role generally comes after someone’s guilt has already been determined, either through a plea agreement or a trial. Then comes sentencing.

The sentencing process generally follows this pattern: An offender is convicted of a crime, the judge sets a date for sentencing, and then the judge conducts a pre-sentence investigation to determine the appropriate sentence. According to the American Bar Association, this investigation “may consider the defendant’s prior criminal record, family situation, health, work record, and any other relevant factor.” In the vast majority of cases, the sentence is solely up to the judge.

Restorative justice programs in operation throughout the country — some of which explicitly label themselves as such and some of which are clearly influenced by its principles — seek to upend the post-conviction process. The programs are run by different groups, some by state and local governments and others by independent or even for-profit organizations. Participation in these programs varies, with some states allowing these programs to exist as alternatives only for certain crimes or certain offenders (e.g., juveniles). These programs are generally opt-in for offenders in qualifying cases, and so, the vast majority of offenders still go through the traditional sentencing process.

According to research by Occidental College law professor Thalia González , as of July 2020, “The only states that have not codified restorative justice into criminal law are North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, South Carolina, and Wyoming.” (Restorative justice programs can be found outside the US too, from Canada to Ireland to Australia.)

Impact Justice, a criminal justice reform group, lays out a simple model for understanding restorative justice when it comes to criminal proceedings. Instead of asking what law was broken, who broke it, and what punishment is warranted — as our punitive system does — restorative justice asks who was harmed, what do they need, and whose obligation is it to meet those needs.

Typically, these programs involve what practitioners call a “conference” where the victim, offender, and community members (often friends or family of both parties) sit down. The offender will apologize or take responsibility for the harm they have caused and seek to make amends, and the victim is given the opportunity to ask questions and make clear all the ways the crime has impacted them and their community.

While these conferences vary widely, restorative justice facilitator sujatha baliga explained for Vox what session results can look like: “At the end of the process, which typically ends with one or more face-to-face sessions with the entire circle, a plan to meet the survivor’s self-identified needs is made by consensus of everyone present. The responsible person is supported by family and community to do right by those they’ve harmed. For example, if joining a sports team is a part of the responsible person’s plan to help them stay out of trouble after school, people in his circle agree to take him to practice, or pay for the enrollment fees.”

It’s notable that the majority of these programs are for juvenile offenders; Gonzalez found that 91 laws in 33 jurisdictions are related to restorative justice programs aimed at minors, while just 42 laws in 15 jurisdictions are related to adult offenders. While the research is mixed, there is good evidence that programs focused on minors have been found to reduce recidivism.

“Accountability is understanding the harm you’ve caused and doing something to make it right”

A 2017 meta-analysis of restorative justice programs, which looked at dozens of research projects and studies, found “a moderate reduction in future delinquent behavior relative to more traditional juvenile court processing.” The authors, however, were wary as to the reliability of these results since reductions were smaller for the “more credible random assignment studies.”

Encouragingly, one recently released paper looked at offenders ages 13 to 17 that were randomly assigned to either go through a restorative justice program or the traditional process. After six months, the former group was rearrested at a rate 19 percentage points fewer than those in a control group prosecuted in the ordinary juvenile justice system.

What restorative justice can — and cannot — do for victims

Restorative justice is perhaps overly optimistic about what it expects. It imagines a world where victims can be magnanimous about some of the most heinous transgressions, guilty offenders can be truly apologetic, and the broader community is positioned and able to help both parties.

According to University of New South Wales Sydney criminologist Julie Stubbs , there is disagreement over whether restorative justice programs actually prioritize victims. Participants cite high levels of satisfaction, but it’s unclear how much of this can be attributed specifically to the programs as opposed to selection effects (are the types of people ending up in restorative justice programs somehow different from people who aren’t?), the effects of time, or support from their communities. She also notes that satisfaction has been conceptualized and measured inconsistently, making it hard to be definitive about victims’ experiences.

Cymone Fuller, co-director of the Restorative Justice Project at Impact Justice, told Vox that victims often come to restorative justice conferences looking for answers: “They might be asking for very practical things like, ‘I want my car back,’ and then sometimes they really are looking for a fuller narrative for what happened to them.”

One study by Fuller’s organization of 100 cases that were diverted to a restorative justice program in Alameda County, California, found that 91 percent of the victim participants who completed the survey would be willing to participate in another conference, and the same percentage would recommend the process to a friend.

When asked about the role of forgiveness in these encounters, Fuller argues that “it’s so important to disentangle this assumption or this requirement that people assume it’s necessary for restorative justice to equal forgiveness. There is no expectation that at the end of this it becomes this huge moment of forgiveness.”

There are some practical problems with seeking forgiveness within a criminal justice system, even one purporting to be “restorative.”

While there may be those among us who can forgive an unrepentant offender — if forgiveness is even the right word for such an act — for most of us, forgiveness requires a sincere apology. There isn’t extensive research on the question, but a set of interviews in 1999 with minors who went through a restorative justice program indicated that while 61 percent of offenders said they really were sorry, just 27 percent of their victims thought the offenders were sincerely apologetic.

This could be because in some restorative justice programs, facilitators require participants to apologize. Victims can feel as though the apology is only happening because the perpetrator is being prompted to give it, not because they truly feel contrition.

Even with a sincere apology, the coercive environment extends to the victim as well.

“Forgiving under government pressure is not really forgiveness, and it places further burdens on people already victimized,” former Harvard Law School dean Martha Minow wrote in her book When Should Law Forgive?

It’s uncomfortable not to accept someone’s apology, especially in front of other people. In most restorative justice settings, victims are not only in front of a facilitator but also the offender’s family or friends and members of their community. Some research has shown that in these communal conference situations, victims will say they forgive the offender simply to avoid the embarrassment of not doing so.

It is bad for victims to feel forced to accept their perpetrator’s apology in and of itself, but the larger concern is that it could lead to further abuse.

“There is no expectation that at the end of this it becomes this huge moment of forgiveness”

“There’s a danger about pressures to forgive, particularly on some victims more than others,” York University philosophy professor Alice MacLachlan cautions. It’s helpful to think about this in terms of intimate partner violence and the cycle of abuse, as that cycle includes reconciliation. Following a period of building tension, an incident will occur, perhaps physical violence, after which the perpetrator — overcome with guilt or simply scared that their partner will reveal the crime to the community or law enforcement — will attempt to reconcile. This reconciliation process often includes pleas for forgiveness and, if the victim relents, can bring the two closer together and lay the groundwork for continued abuse.

Restorative justice conferences could unwittingly play a role in this cycle of abuse by facilitating apologies and eliciting forgiveness, potentially laying the groundwork for further harm. As Stubbs writes , because “domestic violence is commonly recurrent” and the “threat of violence may be ongoing and not reducible to discrete incidents,” restorative justice programs that seek to find closure for a specific offense are inappropriately theorizing how this crime functions.

“I came to this whole work out of concern about mass violence, genocide, atrocities, and seeing cycles of violence,” Minow told the New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner about her work on forgiveness in the criminal justice system. “And the cycles of violence are perpetuated by resentments because of the way the last cycle of violence was resolved. I fear that that’s where we are living right now, and that there are many justified resentments. And maybe some unjustified ones, but, because there’s a perception that some people are treated better than others, we are laying the seeds for further conflict.”

Forgiveness and power

At its root, forgiveness is about letting go of justified negative emotions and a desire for retribution. It is also about giving up a certain form of social power that victims hold.

“Expectations of forgiveness are raced and gendered,” Minow argued on the Brennan Center for Justice’s podcast . “They’re also about class. They’re about power, but that’s partly because forgiveness is one of the powers of the weak. To claim the ability to forgive — and let’s be clear, to not forgive — is to claim the position of equality and dignity. And that’s a power that we shouldn’t actually ever take away from people.”

Before forgiving, victims can try and gain necessary concessions from society or from offenders, but after, forgiveness implies that the victim has moved on and society has permission to do so as well. But a community getting over the impact of a specific crime without addressing the underlying systemic reasons why the wrong happened in the first place can just make things worse.

Put another way, with forgiveness, victims provide society a catharsis and relief from the tension of recognizing that a wrong must be rectified.

It’s therefore not surprising that there is a notable tension in left-leaning political spaces between calls for leniency and restorative justice for criminal offenses, and calls for punitive measures against sexual abusers as the Me Too movement gained traction.

Georgetown University philosophy professor Alisa Carse has seen her students’ reluctance to bring restorative justice programs to their college campus for the purpose of resolving sexual misconduct cases. “I was so surprised,” she told Vox. “But a lot of the students felt like it would convey that we think these crimes are less important.”

“We tend to think of forgiveness in very transactional, dyadic terms,” she adds, “but often it’s the broader community that’s playing a very important role both in bolstering the wronged party and in validating that what was done counted as a wrong.”

If that is lacking, Carse argues, and you have a culture that valorizes forgiveness, it leads to isolation of the wronged party — creating a “toxic” situation.

At first glance, it can seem like a simple case of hypocrisy: liberals that support less punitive measures for criminals who are unlikely to hurt them, but more punitive measures for criminals when they view themselves as more likely to be potential victims. But perhaps there’s more than that going on; it’s not difficult to see how sexual assault cases are distinct. Unlike a murder or a robbery where society regularly recognizes a clear victim and clear aggressor, in cases of sexual misconduct, society has so often shown indifference — shrugging at the problem, as if adjudicating “he said/she said” is only possible when sexual violence isn’t involved.

Restorative justice asks who was harmed, what do they need, and whose obligation is it to meet those needs

However, as baliga wrote for Vox in 2018, restorative justice has been shown to work in some sexual violence cases. In one promising example, baliga recounts a conference she helped facilitate between a young woman, Sofia, who had been assaulted by a classmate, Michael.

“Sofia’s transformation was breathtaking — she found her voice that day. And by the end of our time together, it felt like Michael had gained an understanding of consent. As we moved into creating a plan to repair the harm, Michael offered to clear up Sofia’s reputation by posting on social media a public apology to her, which included the words ‘she didn’t lie.’ Michael also agreed with Sofia’s request for him to spend a month of school at home to give Sofia space. Afterward, everyone except for Michael and Sofia hugged.”

Baliga writes that Sofia’s self-confidence returned to her in the weeks following the conference and that, following graduation, Michael wrote a research paper on sexual violence.

Restorative justice can, then, help restore both individuals to a community. But the expectations may be too high. In encouraging these interactions between offender and victim, restorative justice makes the potential for forgiveness much more real, which may play a part in why many victims of violent crime reject the idea of entering into a conference with their offender.

“If we’re going to think about forgiveness in terms of restorative justice, the only morally and politically careful way to do that is to recognize the legitimacy of the unforgiving victim,” MacLachlan told Vox. “Not forgiving is a legitimate response to being seriously harmed.”

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Restorative justice at the crossroads: politics, power, and language

• Pritzker School of Law

Research output : Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

In “Neither Boat Nor Barbeque,” Schiff and Hooker create analytic space and discursive context aimed at developing a more nuanced understanding of how the language of “restorative justice” hinders its transformative potential for achieving right and equitable relationships. Despite what may appear to be a more narrowly tailored focus on linguistic constructions, their desire to grapple with the practical and imaginative limits of language establishes a broad container for exploration of multivariate tensions within the field. As such, they place restorative justice—as a movement, project, theory, or practice—at a crossroads. We enter into that crossroads in the following conceptual manner. First, we contend that simultaneous to a call for, and ultimately development of, a new language of restorative justice there must be a close interrogation of the politics of restorative justice. Specifically, we call for scrutiny of individuals who have shaped the framing, transmission, and institutionalization of the pre-existing restorative justice language (e.g., values, philosophies, and ideas). We believe this is essential to guard against replication of a conversational domain dominated by speakers that constrain a new language’s end goal, and this will ultimately address the concern Schiff and Hooker raise about the inability for restorative justice to remain inside the current justice discourse and produce a new possibility for right relationship. Our second objective is to bring distinct attention to the need for any new restorative justice language to shift away from defining itself in relationship to systems. Grounding restorative justice within or adjacent to systems will continuously plague any efforts to achieve a movement building vision or to realize change for those most impacted by injustice. We introduce these ideas to invigorate a new conversation and enrich the conventional restorative justice discourse by highlighting the possibility for new lines of theoretical and empirical analysis, which may in turn redefine the lexicon of restorative justice.

• Restorative justice
• framing processes
• linguistic constructions
• narrative frames
• norm theory

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• 10.1080/10282580.2019.1644172

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• Power politics Arts and Humanities 100%
• Restorative Justice Arts and Humanities 100%
• Justice Social Sciences 100%
• Institutionalization Psychology 100%
• Discourse in Justice Social Sciences 22%
• Discourse Arts and Humanities 20%
• Hooker Arts and Humanities 20%
• Boat Social Sciences 11%

T1 - Restorative justice at the crossroads

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PY - 2019/7/3

Y1 - 2019/7/3

N2 - In “Neither Boat Nor Barbeque,” Schiff and Hooker create analytic space and discursive context aimed at developing a more nuanced understanding of how the language of “restorative justice” hinders its transformative potential for achieving right and equitable relationships. Despite what may appear to be a more narrowly tailored focus on linguistic constructions, their desire to grapple with the practical and imaginative limits of language establishes a broad container for exploration of multivariate tensions within the field. As such, they place restorative justice—as a movement, project, theory, or practice—at a crossroads. We enter into that crossroads in the following conceptual manner. First, we contend that simultaneous to a call for, and ultimately development of, a new language of restorative justice there must be a close interrogation of the politics of restorative justice. Specifically, we call for scrutiny of individuals who have shaped the framing, transmission, and institutionalization of the pre-existing restorative justice language (e.g., values, philosophies, and ideas). We believe this is essential to guard against replication of a conversational domain dominated by speakers that constrain a new language’s end goal, and this will ultimately address the concern Schiff and Hooker raise about the inability for restorative justice to remain inside the current justice discourse and produce a new possibility for right relationship. Our second objective is to bring distinct attention to the need for any new restorative justice language to shift away from defining itself in relationship to systems. Grounding restorative justice within or adjacent to systems will continuously plague any efforts to achieve a movement building vision or to realize change for those most impacted by injustice. We introduce these ideas to invigorate a new conversation and enrich the conventional restorative justice discourse by highlighting the possibility for new lines of theoretical and empirical analysis, which may in turn redefine the lexicon of restorative justice.

AB - In “Neither Boat Nor Barbeque,” Schiff and Hooker create analytic space and discursive context aimed at developing a more nuanced understanding of how the language of “restorative justice” hinders its transformative potential for achieving right and equitable relationships. Despite what may appear to be a more narrowly tailored focus on linguistic constructions, their desire to grapple with the practical and imaginative limits of language establishes a broad container for exploration of multivariate tensions within the field. As such, they place restorative justice—as a movement, project, theory, or practice—at a crossroads. We enter into that crossroads in the following conceptual manner. First, we contend that simultaneous to a call for, and ultimately development of, a new language of restorative justice there must be a close interrogation of the politics of restorative justice. Specifically, we call for scrutiny of individuals who have shaped the framing, transmission, and institutionalization of the pre-existing restorative justice language (e.g., values, philosophies, and ideas). We believe this is essential to guard against replication of a conversational domain dominated by speakers that constrain a new language’s end goal, and this will ultimately address the concern Schiff and Hooker raise about the inability for restorative justice to remain inside the current justice discourse and produce a new possibility for right relationship. Our second objective is to bring distinct attention to the need for any new restorative justice language to shift away from defining itself in relationship to systems. Grounding restorative justice within or adjacent to systems will continuously plague any efforts to achieve a movement building vision or to realize change for those most impacted by injustice. We introduce these ideas to invigorate a new conversation and enrich the conventional restorative justice discourse by highlighting the possibility for new lines of theoretical and empirical analysis, which may in turn redefine the lexicon of restorative justice.

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Restorative Justice

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• Christopher D. Marshall 3  

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Restorative justice has been described as one of the most significant innovations in the administration of criminal justice to have arisen in the modern era. From small scale experimental beginnings in the early 1970s, it has since grown into a global social movement for change, embracing a diversity of discursive and peacemaking practices in a wide range of settings. While the story behind the emergence of the modern restorative justice movement is contested, there is good reason not to discount the contribution of religious faith to the genesis, theory and practice of restorative justice. In fact, without the influence of core Christian values and beliefs, the central tenets of restorative justice might not emerge with such clarity and conviction.

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The quote continues, “The more we are emotionally drawn to a religious ethic of love, the more we will be motivated to make restorative justice work. The more we have both a longing for some conflation of love or compassion and justice (and some theoretical framework within which to situate the possibility of that conflation), the more we will be motivated to persist in the project of justice-as-repair. The more we are committed to an ethic of nonviolence, the more we suffer at the thought of inflicting suffering on others. The more we are drawn to the value of harmony, the more the aspirations of restorative institutions will appear worthwhile to us.”.

Zehr’s explanation is cited in full in Gade ( 2018 , 30).

There is a vast literature on the use of restorative practices in education. For a recent stocktake by some of its pioneers, see Thorsborne et al. ( 2019 ).

“To refer to restorative justice as a social movement is not to say that restorative justice programs comprise a unified body of actors or that restorative justice philosophies form an undifferentiated body of ideas…this is clearly not the case for restorative justice, but this is also not true for most, if any, social movements. Social movements are networks in which actors with varying interpretations of what the movement is about, and different levels of commitment to the movement, negotiate the meaning of a linked set of ‘big ideas’ as well as their ideal application in everyday life…Thus a social movement is not a single group or organization but rather a host of individual and collective agents engaged in a process of movement definition, issue or grievance articulation, activism and program implementation.” (Woolford 2009 : 19).

Highly influential in inspiring this new wave of Anabaptist peace activism was John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus ( 1972 ), along with his many other publications, such as The Original Revolution ( 1971 ). See further Koontz and Alexis-Baker ( 2009 ).

For a briefer discussion, see Marshall ( 2018b : 200–225).

Cited in Noakes-Duncan ( 2017 : 105).

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Marshall, C.D. (2020). Restorative Justice. In: Babie, P., Sarre, R. (eds) Religion Matters. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_7

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Restorative Justice Dialogue: An Essential Guide for Research and Practice

• M. Umbreit , M. Armour
• Published 22 June 2010
• Law, Sociology

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The Effectiveness of Restorative Justice Practices: A Meta-Analysis

• Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Current activity at governmental and community levels suggests that restorative justice, in its many forms, is emerging as an increasingly important element in mainstream criminological practice. While first discussed in the 1970s by both Barnett (1977) and Eglash (1977) in the context of restitution, restorative justice has been more clearly integrated into criminological thinking through such works as Braithwaite (1989), Marshall (1985), Umbreit (1994a) and Zehr (1990). Rather than focussing on the traditional rehabilitation versus retribution debate, many researchers and policy makers now consider restorative justice and, more precisely the concept of restoration, as a valid third alternative (Zehr, 1990). Numerous countries have adopted restorative approaches, including Canada, England, Australia, Scotland, New Zealand, Norway, the United States, Japan and several European countries (Hughes & Mossman, 2001).

Despite the increased attention given to restorative justice, the concept still remains somewhat problematic to define as numerous responses to criminal behaviour may fall under the “ restorative umbrella. ” The term has been used interchangeably with such concepts as community justice, transformative justice, peacemaking criminology and relational justice (Bazemore & Walgrave, 1999). Although a universally accepted and concise definition of the term has yet to be established, Tony F. Marshall’s definition appears to encompass the main principles of restorative justice: “ Restorative justice is a process whereby all the parties with a stake in a particular offence come together to resolve collectively how to deal with the aftermath of the offence and its implications for the future ” (cited in Braithwaite, 1999, p. 5).

Essentially, the restorative justice paradigm begins with the premise that crime is a violation of people and relationships (Zehr, 1990) rather than merely a violation of law. The most appropriate response to criminal behaviour, therefore, is to repair the harm caused by the wrongful act (Law Commission, 2000). As such, the criminal justice system should provide those most closely affected by the crime (the victim, the offender and the community) an opportunity to come together to discuss the event and attempt to arrive at some understanding about what can be done to provide appropriate reparation.

According to Llewellyn and Howse (1998), the main elements of the restorative process involve voluntariness, truth telling and a face-to-face encounter. Consequently, the process should be completely voluntary for all participants; the offender needs to accept responsibility for the harm and be willing to openly and honestly discuss the criminal behaviour; and the participants should meet in a safe and organized setting to collectively agree on an appropriate method of repairing the harm.

Models of restorative justice can be grouped into three categories: circles, conferences and victim-offender mediations (VOM). While somewhat distinct in their practices, the principles employed in each model remain similar [1] . A restorative justice program may be initiated at any point in the criminal justice system and need not be used simply for diversionary purposes. Currently, there are five identified entry points into the criminal justice system where offenders may be referred to a restorative justice program:

• police (pre-charge)
• Crown (post-charge)
• courts (pre-sentence)
• corrections (post-sentence)
• parole (pre-revocation)

Proponents of restorative justice claim that the process is beneficial to both victims and offenders by emphasizing recovery of the victim through redress, vindication and healing, and by encouraging recompense by the offender through reparation, fair treatment and habilitation (Van Ness & Strong, 1997). In the process of coming together to restore relationships, the community is also provided with an opportunity to heal, reconstitute and strengthen itself through the reintegration of victims and offenders (Llewellyn & Howse, 1998).

Despite the intuitive appeal of restorative justice, it is imperative to fully evaluate the impact of this approach on several important outcomes. Previous evaluation research focussing on this area has ranged from purely anecdotal accounts to more rigorous designs using comparison groups and, in some cases, random assignment into control and treatment groups (Bonta, Wallace-Capretta, & Rooney, 1998). These studies have examined the impact of restorative justice on victim and offender satisfaction, restitution compliance, recidivism, procedural fairness, as well as several others.

Given that the field of restorative justice research has been maturing, a need existed to aggregate the present body of empirical knowledge. In this regard, several authors have recently provided comprehensive literature reviews of this area of research (Braithwaite, 1999; Latimer & Kleinknecht, 2000; Marshall, 1999). Summarizing the research through narrative or qualitative approaches, however, may fail to objectively analyse the available data and draw the appropriate conclusions. Cooper and Rosenthal (1980) directly tested the reliability of synthesizing literature through narrative reviews by providing test subjects with a set of seven studies that measured the relationship between two variables. Despite the fact that the set of studies showed a clear statistically significant relationship between the variables, 73 percent of the reviewers found limited or no support for the hypothesis. This suggested that traditional narrative reviews suffer a considerable loss of power and that the incidence of Type II errors may be common. In addition, the criteria for selecting literature for a narrative review are rarely systematic and consistent. The introduction of meta-analytic techniques, however, has marked a major step forward in summarizing research by providing a more objective method of aggregating knowledge.

[1] For a more detailed discussion of the nature and principles of restorative justice, and the core program models, Restorative Justice in Canada: A Consultation Paper (May 2000) developed by the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Working Group on Restorative Justice.

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7 The Role of Forgiveness in Reconciliation and Restorative Justice: A Christian Theological Perspective

• Published: April 2014
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This chapter argues that forgiveness can contribute to the emerging relationally based theory of peacemaking. It understands forgiveness as a process of moving from ill will to goodwill toward offenders, and as compatible with various forms of justice. Forgiveness is often the basis of reconciliation, the restoration of right relationship. Both of these depend in some ways on the acknowledgment of truth. Forgiveness and reconciliation are analogous concepts applied in a variety of different contexts from small- to large-scale contexts. Forgiveness can play a vital role in efforts to promote restorative justice, which seeks to address harms suffered by victims, wider communities, and even perpetrators. Christian theology locates the greatest exemplar and source of forgiveness and reconciliation in the steadfast, free, and forgiving love of God for humanity. The church advocates practices of forgiveness, reconciliation, and restorative justice not only within particular Christian communities but also in the public life of post-conflict societies. The church is called to send “peacemakers” and “ambassadors of reconciliation” into the situations that cry for healing and justice. This chapter argues that an ethic of forgiveness can support the political and social goals of reconciliation and restorative justice.

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Justice in History: An Examination of African Restorative Traditions and Emerging Restorative Justice Paradigm.

A Review of African Restorative Traditions for International Audience of Restorative Justice.

Related Papers

Prof. Don John Omale (PhD)

"The strong advocacy for Restorative Justice and Alternative Dispute Resolution in Africa; and evolving models is a welcomed development for penal reforms and conflict resolution. However, as an African adage says "it is when a tripod is being designed and constructed that the legs should be set straight to forestall cook wares falling". This study drew its strength from a completed Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) dissertation initially reviewed with the aim of setting the record straight in the meaning and conceptions of restorative justice and alternative dispute resolution for African practitioners. This is imperative because as the saying goes "words put differently make different meanings, and meaning put differently yield different actions". So if restorative justice and alternative dispute resolution must advance professionally, and as academic disciplines in Africa, practitioners and academics must understand the 'thin' differences inherent in the principles and practice of restorative justice, and alternative dispute resolution."

African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies: AJCJS,

Peter Genger PhD

Corruption has continued to plague countries across the world, especially those in Africa. Local and international communities have all congregated around the conviction that Western bureaucratic mechanisms can destroy and deter corruption. The heavy criticisms against them indicates failure coming from inherent contradictions and lack of political and moral will to keep corruption practices and actors at bay. African restorative justice is articulated as a viable mechanism for controlling corruption and should not be taken as a second fiddle to Western mechanisms, but suis generis a strategy with great potentials. By using African restorative justice mechanism, Nigeria will not only be cutting down corruption but attacking its root, namely, moral depravity and the aversion of social responsibility.

The protracted and endemic armed conflict and violence in Africa has undermined its democratic gains and sustainable development. However, application of restorative justice mechanisms (such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, and the Rwanda Gaccaca) have significantly, unraveled some of the common sources of conflict in Africa which include intergenerational forms of exclusion and marginalization, poverty, structural inequality, and insecurity. Findings from these restorative mechanisms show that very many people and groups benefit from the intractable conflicts in Africa; and so it is learnt that, reducing the opportunities, attractiveness and profitability of conflict is important if violent conflict must be prevented in Africa. Using literature evidence and ethno-methodology, this paper advances endogenous/indigenous, and Afrocentric principles and practices that are relevant to the global restorative justice principles and practices because, as far as the knowledge of Dispute Resolution, and/ or restorative justice is concerned, Africans with their long knowledge and culture of communitarianism has got a lot to share with the West as much as they have got to learn from the West. This paper argues that while the international community has a better understanding of the elements of successful peacekeeping operations in Africa, it needs sufficient local knowledge of what should be done to consolidate peace in Africa and how best to go about achieving it, hence selected Afrocentric evidence are presented for international learning.

Christian Gade

It has frequently been argued that the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was committed to restorative justice (RJ), and that RJ has deep historical roots in African indigenous cultures by virtue of its congruence both with ubuntu and with African indigenous justice systems (AIJS). In this article, I look into the question of what RJ is. I also present the finding that the term ‘restorative justice’ appears only in transcripts of three public TRC hearings, and the hypothesis that the TRC first really began to take notice of the term ‘restorative justice’ after April 1997, when the South African Law Commission published an Issue Paper dealing with RJ. Furthermore, I show that neither the connection between RJ and ubuntu nor the connection between RJ and AIJS is as straightforward and unproblematic as often assumed.

Brittany VandeBerg

Since 2009, more than 300 Somali pirates have been prosecuted and imprisoned in East Africa using the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime "regional model for prosecuting pirates". The vast majority of these piracy prisoners have been repatriated to Somalia and are slated to complete their sentences and return home within the next five years. However, members of Somalia's coastal communities continue to express anger and resentment towards former pirates raising questions about the feasibility of reintegration. Drawing from African Criminology literature, this paper seeks to unpack how previous counter piracy programming helped foster an anti-piracy environment that also may have inadvertently created barriers to the eventual reintegration of former pirates. In doing so, we locate points of intervention and theorize how themes from African restorative justice can help decolonize counter piracy programming and inform a more Somali-driven approach to achieving justice for victims of piracy.

Jennifer Llewellyn

Simon Robins

" In this monograph, four eminent critics and researchers examine the theory and practice of criminal justice in Africa. This monograph provides us with an important opportunity to engage in the debate through exploring various themes on the expression of democracy and justice through the workings of criminal justice systems of some countries in Africa.

ABSTRACT Restorative justice in African states has gained a significant profile through transitional justice process, but remains very much at the fringes of mainstream practice in criminal justice systems. This article reviews the challenges faced by criminal justice systems in the contemporary African state and the promise of restorative justice from both theory and practice, using Uganda as an example.

Northern Ireland Lagal Quarterly

David O'Mahony

Criminal justice reform plays a pivotal role in helping to foster reconciliation and peace-building in post-conflict societies. In the wake of their respective political transitions, both Northern Ireland and South Africa have formulated proposals for reform of their youth justice systems based upon restorative principles. This article analyses the attempts to roll out these reforms in both jurisdictions. It considers why new youth justice arrangements have largely been well received in Northern Ireland, yet have struggled to be implemented successfully in South Africa and reflects on possible lessons to be learnt in the context of post-conflict transformations.

Centre for Interdisciplinary Justice Studies , Melanie J Murchison , Richard Jochelson

This is the second double blind peer review from the journal. We thank all contributors and acknowledge financial support from the University of Winnipeg Dean of Arts and Research Office. Othering or Protecting? The Discursive Practice of Saving Youth Prostitutes, Kelly Gorkoff Remorse and Reconciliation in the Courtroom: An Exploratory Survey of Judicial Discourse on Apologies, Neil Funk Unrau Finding a Theory of Justice for Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commision, Amanda Nelund Barriers to Leaving the Gang: An Exploratory Analysis, Caitlyn Cassell, Michael Weinrath Colliding Intersections in Law: Culture, Race and Mental Health, Ruby Dhand Multidimensional Analysis of Judicial Decision-Making: Reframing Judicial Activism as the Study of Judicial Discourse (or taking the judgment out of the Judgment), Richard Jochelson, Michael Weinrath, Melanie Murchison An Evaluation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada through the Lens of Restorative Justice, Konstantin Petoukhov Juvenile Detention Reform in the United States: From a Punitive Measure to Helping Youth, Courtney A. Waid-Lindberg The Construction of Risk and Need in Community Classification Schemes, Christina Reinke Questioning Justice: Kenyan Ethnopolitical Violence and Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission, Peter Karari

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Restorative Justice Vs. Retributive Justice: What’s The Difference?

How do you define justice? For many, justice is a fundamental concept in society, ensuring fairness, equality, and accountability. It serves as a cornerstone of legal systems worldwide, aiming to maintain social order and protect individual rights. However, the approaches to justice can vary significantly, leading to diverse outcomes and consequences.

Two primary approaches to justice have been widely debated and implemented: restorative justice and retributive justice. Both approaches seek to address wrongdoing and restore harmony in society, but they differ significantly in their underlying principles and methods.

The purpose of this discussion is to compare and contrast retributive vs. restorative justice, shedding light on their distinct features, advantages, and limitations. By exploring these two approaches, we can gain a deeper understanding of how justice is pursued and achieved in different contexts.

So, let’s delve into the principles and processes of restorative justice vs. retributive justice, highlighting their key differences and exploring their implications for individuals, communities, and society as a whole.

What is Restorative Justice? 

Restorative justice is an approach to justice that doesn’t dwell on some obstruction of justice charge but instead focuses on repairing the harm caused by a crime or conflict. It seeks to involve all stakeholders, including victims, offenders, and the community, in a process that addresses the needs of everyone affected. 

The core principles of restorative justice include the following:

• Inclusion: All individuals affected by the crime or conflict are given an opportunity to participate in the process. 
• Dialogue: Restorative justice emphasizes open and honest communication between all parties involved. This dialogue allows for understanding, empathy, and the opportunity to express emotions and perspectives.
• Responsibility: The process encourages offenders to take responsibility for their actions and make amends to repair the harm caused. It aims to foster accountability and encourage offenders to reintegrate into the community.
• Repair: Restorative justice focuses on repairing the harm caused by the crime or conflict. It aims to address the needs of the victim and provide support for their healing while also promoting the growth and rehabilitation of the offender.

The goals of restorative justice are to repair the caused harm, foster accountability, and promote healing. Successful examples of restorative justice practices exist in various parts of the world:

• New Zealand: The country has a strong tradition of restorative justice, particularly in the youth justice system. The Family Group Conference model allows victims, offenders, and their families to come together to discuss the offense, its impact, and how to repair the harm caused.
• Canada: The restorative justice movement has gained traction in Canada, particularly within Indigenous communities. The use of talking circles, where participants sit in a circle and pass around a talking piece to facilitate open and respectful communication, has been successful in addressing conflicts and promoting healing.
• Rwanda: Following the 1994 genocide, Rwanda implemented restorative justice practices known as Gacaca courts. These community-based tribunals aimed to reconcile the nation by facilitating truth-telling, accountability, and reparations. The process allowed for the healing and reintegration of offenders into the community.

What is Retributive Justice? 

Retributive justice is a theory of justice that is built on retribute, i.e., it emphasizes punishment as a response to wrongdoing. It is based on the principle that offenders deserve to be punished for their actions and that punishment should be proportionate to the severity of the crime committed.

The primary characteristics of retributive justice include the following:

• Deserved punishment : Retribution focuses on ensuring that offenders receive the punishment they deserve based on the harm they have caused. The severity of the punishment should be proportional to the seriousness of the crime.
• Moral judgment: Retributive justice involves making a moral judgment about the actions of the offender. It assumes that individuals have free will and are responsible for their choices, thereby holding them accountable for their actions.
• Individual focus: Retribution primarily concerns itself with the individual offender rather than considering the broader societal implications or addressing underlying causes of criminal behavior.

The goals of retributive justice are centered around punishment, deterrence, and maintaining social order. This system is commonly used worldwide, and retributive justice examples can be found in various countries:

• United States: The American criminal justice system is often considered retributive in nature, with a focus on punishment and the concept of “an eye for an eye.”
• Saudi Arabia: The legal system in Saudi Arabia is known for its strict adherence to retributive justice, implementing corporal punishments such as flogging and amputations.
• Singapore: Singapore has a reputation for its tough stance on crime, employing retributive punishments such as caning for certain offenses.
• Iran: The Iranian legal system is based on Islamic law, which includes retributive punishments such as flogging, amputation, and even the death penalty.

It is important to note that while retributive justice systems have their merits, they are also subject to criticism. Some argue that they prioritize punishment over rehabilitation and fail to address the root causes of crime. Consequently, alternative models of justice, such as restorative justice, have gained attention in recent years.

Comparison Of Restorative Justice And Retributive Justice 

To compare these two terms, we’ll show you several points and how each system differs according to them.

• Focus and Purpose

Restorative justice focuses on repairing harm, promoting healing, and restoring relationships.

Retributive justice prioritizes punishment, deterrence, and retribution as a means of justice.

Restorative justice involves facilitated dialogues between victims, offenders, and community members to address the harm done and find mutually acceptable resolutions.

Retributive justice follows a formal legal process with an emphasis on proving guilt or innocence, assigning blame, and imposing predetermined punishments.

• Participants

Restorative justice includes victims, offenders, their supporters, and community members who are affected.

Retributive justice primarily involves legal professionals, including judges, lawyers, and law enforcement officials.

• Accountability

Restorative justice encourages personal accountability and responsibility by having offenders take active steps to repair harm and make amends.

Retributive justice focuses on external accountability through punishment imposed by the state.

Restorative justice aims to address the emotional and psychological needs of victims, offenders, and the community by promoting healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Retributive justice does not prioritize healing, instead focusing on punishment and isolation of offenders.

• Punitive Measures

Retributive justice relies on punitive measures such as imprisonment, fines, and probation as a means of punishment.

Restorative justice seeks alternative measures that prioritize rehabilitation, restitution, and community service.

• Community Involvement

Restorative justice emphasizes community participation, involving community members in the decision-making process and encouraging their support in the healing and restoration of relationships.

Retributive justice does not involve significant community involvement beyond serving as witnesses or jurors in criminal trials.

Restorative justice has been found to reduce recidivism rates by addressing the root causes of offending behavior and promoting rehabilitation.

Retributive justice has a higher likelihood of contributing to recidivism, as punishment alone does not address underlying issues.

Retributive justice vs. restorative justice offers contrasting approaches to the criminal justice system. Restorative justice focuses on repairing harm, promoting healing, and reintegrating offenders into society, while retributive justice aims to punish and deter wrongdoing. 

The choice between these approaches depends on the goals of the justice system and the desired outcomes. However, incorporating elements of both approaches can lead to a more balanced and effective justice system.

Ongoing dialogue and research are crucial to improving the justice system and fostering fairness, accountability, and community well-being.

About The Author

Michael Anderson

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By Michelle Maiese Originally published October 2003, Updated June 2013 by Heidi Burgess and Sarah Cast, Current Implications added by Heidi Burgess in July, 2020.

Current Implications

After the May, 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, calls for "racial justice" were voiced around the world.  What the protestors meant by "justice," however, was seldom stated, and now, two months later, I still haven't heard anything that sounds much at all like a call for restorative justice. But it is worth considering whether restorative justice has a role in this situation.  Certainly there is a need for other types of justice as well.  American society is too familiar with and committed to retributive justice to abandon that approach.  The calls for holding the officers involved to account should certainly be headed, lest there be even more outrage that the officer, again,"got away with murder."   So too should there be procedural changes, so that finally, this kind of event becomes less frequent.   More...

The Aims of Restorative Justice

Restorative justice is concerned with healing victims' wounds, restoring offenders to law-abiding lives, and repairing harm done to interpersonal relationships and the community. It seeks to involve all stakeholders and provide opportunities for those most affected by the crime to be directly involved in the process of responding to the harm caused.

A central premise of restorative justice is that victims, offenders, and the affected communities are all key stakeholders in the restorative process.[1] Victims include not only those directly affected by the offense, but also family members and members of the affected community. The safety, support, and needs of these victims are the starting points for any restorative justice process. Thus a primary objective is to attend to victims' needs: material, financial, emotional, and social.[2] Addressing these needs and the needs of the community is necessary if public demands for severe punishment are to be quelled.

This requires the assumption that crimes or violations are committed against real individuals, rather than against the state. Restorative justice, therefore, advocates restitution to the victim by the offender rather than retribution by the state against the offender. Instead of continuing and escalating the cycle of violence, it tries to restore relationships and stop the violence.[3]

A restorative justice process also aims to empower victims to participate effectively in dialogue or mediation with offenders. Victims take an active role in directing the exchange that takes place, as well as defining the responsibilities and obligations of offenders. Offenders are likewise encouraged to participate in this exchange, to understand the harm they have caused to victims, and to take active responsibility for it. This means making efforts on their parts to set things right, to make amends for their violations, by committing to certain obligations, that may come in the form of reparations, restitution, or community work. While fulfilling these obligations may be experienced as painful, the goal is not revenge, but restoration of healthy relationships between individuals and within communities that have been most affected by the crime.

Restorative justice is a forward-looking, preventive response that strives to understand crime in its social context. It challenges us to examine the root causes of violence and crime in order that these cycles might be broken.[4] This approach is based on the assumption that crime has its origins in social conditions, and recognizes that offenders themselves have often suffered harm. Therefore, communities must both take some responsibility for remedying those conditions that contribute to crime and also work to promote healing.[5]

Healing is crucial not just for victims, but also for offenders. Both the rehabilitation of offenders and their integration into the community are vital aspects of restorative justice. Offenders are treated respectfully and their needs are addressed. Removing them from the community, or imposing any other severe restrictions, is a last resort. It is thought that the best way to prevent re-offending is re-integration.[6]

The justice process in this way strengthens the community and promotes changes that will prevent similar harms from happening in the future. It is generally thought that restorative justice should be integrated with legal justice as a complementary process that improves the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of justice as a whole.[7] Because they focus on the needs of the victim, the offender, and the community, restorative processes can help to determine how the law should be applied most fairly.

Processes in the United States

Restorative justice in the United States takes on various forms. Victim-offender mediation is perhaps the most common, and involves face-to-face dialogues between victims and offenders. Victims' needs, including the need to be consulted, are the focus. In victim-offender meetings, offenders have a chance to take active steps to make reparation to their victims. This extends further than monetary compensation, and includes an apology and an explanation of how the crime occurred. The offender might also do some work for the victim, or for some community cause selected by the victim.

In addition, offenders have to listen to victims' stories and face up to the reality of what they have done. They are often deeply affected by this experience, and have positive motivation to make reparations. Because this process brings victims and offenders together and enables them to talk to one another, it can allow them to see the other as a person rather than a stereotype . For this process to be effective, a skilled mediator should facilitate these meetings.

Group conferencing is an extension of victim-offender mediation and includes more parties, such as family members of the victim or offender, community contacts, teachers, neighbors, or counselors. The involvement of extra parties can make conferencing more forceful than one-on-one mediation.

Community victim-support organizations work to provide victims with material, psychological, and social support and aid in the healing process. Other organizations offer support services for offenders, including literacy education, relationship counseling, drug counseling, and housing accommodation. Some agencies assist in reintegration for offenders and help them to find employment. Still other groups work to help communities as a whole become less prone to crime.[8]

U.S. school districts plagued by segregation and gang violence are increasingly implementing restorative justice programs for students to develop mutual empathy and address past wrongs through meaningful reparations. An Oakland, California school program that facilitates student conversations by hosting talking circles, for example, is offered as an alternative to "zero tolerance" policies like expulsion.[9] The program thus seeks to replace punitive responses to violence with opportunities to address the root causes of school and community-wide disputes.

Restorative Justice Around the World

Restorative justice might also have an important role in responding to severe human rights violations or cases of genocide . A crucial step toward restorative justice is taken when governments tell the truth about past atrocities carried out by the state.[10] It is thought that true healing requires three steps:

• Remembering the atrocities committed,
• Repenting , and
• Forgiving .

War crimes inquiries and truth commissions can aid in the process of memory and truth telling, and help to make public the extent to which victims have suffered.

Restoration often becomes a matter of restitution or war reparations. In cases where clear acts of injustice have taken place, some type of compensation can help to meet the material and emotional needs of victims and begin to remedy the injustice. Repentance can also help to re-establish relationships among the conflicting parties and help them to move toward reconciliation . In some cases, conflicts can end more peacefully when parties acknowledge their guilt and apologize than when formal war crimes adjudication or criminal proceedings are used.

In cases of civil war, because the line between offenders and victims can become blurred, a central goal of peacebuilding is to restore the community as a whole. In Northern Ireland, for example, the adoption of restorative justice techniques and practices helped transform destructive practices of punishing various actors into more constructive, non-violent mechanisms of dispute resolution.[11] Restoration often becomes tied to the transformation of the relationship between the conflicting parties. However, such restoration cannot take place unless it is supported by wider social conditions and unless the larger community makes restorative processes available.

Restorative justice in the international context is therefore linked to social structural changes , reconstruction programs to help communities ravaged by conflict, democratization , and the creation of institutions of civil society .

After the May, 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, calls for "racial justice" were voiced around the world.  What the protestors meant by "justice," however, was seldom stated, and now, two months later, I still haven't heard anything that sounds much at all like a call for restorative justice. But it is worth considering whether restorative justice has a role in this situation.  Certainly there is a need for other types of justice as well.  American society is too familiar with and committed to retributive justice to abandon that approach.  The calls for holding the officers involved to account should certainly be headed, lest there be even more outrage that the officer, again,"got away with murder."   So too should there be procedural changes, so that finally, this kind of event becomes exceedingly rare, rather than all too common. 

However, it seems to me that there is also a role for restorative justice, the goal of which is to restore relationships between the victim(s) and the offender(s). There, obviously, is no way to restore relationships between Derek Chauvin (the officer who killed George Floyd) and Floyd himself. It is conceivable to restore the relationship between Chauvin and the Floyd family—restorative justice has been used effectively in the case of violent crime, although usually years after the event when the offender is still incarcerated as a result of retributive justice. [12]

Of more immediate interest is how it might be used to restore the relationship between the citizens of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis police department, and/or how it might be used in other cities nationwide or even worldwide to address the tension between the police and the communities that they serve. Consider the description of restorative justice from Maiese's original article.

A central premise of restorative justice is that victims, offenders, and the affected communities are all key stakeholders in the restorative process.[1] Victims include not only those directly affected by the offense, but also family members and members of the affected community. The safety, support, and needs of these victims are the starting points for any restorative justice process. Thus a primary objective is to attend to victims' needs: material, financial, emotional, and social.[2] 

Retributive justice, which is what will happen when Derek Chauvin and the other involved officers are tried (and, presumably convicted), doesn't address the needs of the community.  It doesn't even address the needs of the Floyd family, except perhaps for giving them the sense that "[retributive] justice" was done.  Defunding (or significantly scaling back) the Minneapolis police department also seems unlikely to address the needs of the community.  Crime is unlikely to go away when there aren't police around; indeed, the opposite is likely to occur.  (See, for example, this story of what happened to Baltimore's police pulled back from their law-enforcement efforts. [13]) But if the community and the police were to sit down in an extended series of dialogues about citizens' emotional and social needs (the police most likely can't influence material and financial needs), meaningful changes might well occur.  Maiese continues:

This paragraph was written assuming the offenders are private citizens, not police, but it takes on particular power when the offenders are the police and the victim is not seen as just George Floyd or the Floyd family, but the entire city of Minneapolis, or more broadly, citizens of all U.S. cities where relations between the police and the citizens are strained.  If this paragraph came to pass, police would come to understand the harm they are causing their cities, and would take active responsibility for it, making amends for their violations and making efforts to "set things right." In this context, restorative justice would also include an opportunity for police to tell their side of the story and for the public to better understand the difficult positions in which officers are commonly placed. This seems to be a much more promising approach than the one that was taken in Baltimore and described in the MacGillis article—where the reforms were ordered from the top down (by the U.S. Department of Justice) without input from local police.  According to that article, the reforms did not make sense in the Baltimore context and weren't seen as appropriate by the police. And, they did not diminish violent crime--it has been on the increase since the reforms were imposed.

Again quoting Maiese:

This, too, is interesting when read from the point of view of the police being the offender.  It suggests that police violence "has its origins in social conditions" and that the police "themselves have often suffered harm. Therefore, communities must both take some responsibility for remedying those conditions that contribute [to police violence] and also work to promote healing." This has a lot of truth in it.  Most police aren't violent and they took the job really hoping to help their communities stay safe.  But the hostility of the community can frighten police and make them over-estimate the chances of them being harmed or killed.  As a result, particularly over time, police can begin to over-react and to increasingly view themselves as "the good guys" in a constant battle with "the bad guys," a highly stressful us-versus-them relationship where all citizens become "the bad guys." With restorative justice, this us-versus-them relationship gets transformed into a "we" relationship where all sides together work to remedy harms and promote healing of the relationship and the people themselves.

Finally, the original article said:

Read from the point of view of the police being the offender, "the rehabilitation of the police and the integration into the community are vital aspects of restorative justice. The police are treated respectfully and their needs are addressed.  Removing them from the community (i.e, defunding the police) or imposing any other severe restrictions, should be a last resort.  It is thought that the best way to prevent more police violence is re-integration.  

Restorative justice, thus, has the potential to help accomplish the needed procedural justice much more effectively than if the changes are imposed by one side on the other.  If the victims are enabled to work directly with the police—instead of against the police—to design crime-fighting units and actions that will actually meet community needs, restorative justice theory and research suggests that the outcome is likely to be much more effective.

--Heidi Burgess, July 23, 2020

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[1] Howard Zehr and H. Mika. 1997.  "Fundamental Concepts of Restorative Justice." Contemporary Justice Review: Issues in Criminal, Social, and Restorative Justice, Volume 1, Issue 1, pp. 47-56. < http://www.beyondintractability.org/library/external-resource?biblio=14829 >.

[2] Tony F. Marshall. "Restorative Justice: An Overview," (Home Office Research Development and Statistics Directorate, 1999). < http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218135832/http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/occ-resjus.pdf >.

[3] Peggy Hutchison and Harmon Wray. "What is Restorative Justice?" (New World Outlook, 1999). < http://gbgm-umc.org/nwo/99ja/what.html >.

[4] Hutchison and Wray.

[5] Marshall, 6.

[6] Zehr and Mika, 2.

[7] Marshall, 7.

[8] See section on "The Cornerposts of Restorative Justice" in Daniel W. Van Ness and Karen Heetderks Strong, Restoring Justice: An Introduction to Restorative Justice . ( Elsevier, 2010). < http://books.google.com/books?id=AZv2MVkHBTcC >.

[9] Patricia Leigh Brown. "Opening Up, Students Transform a Vicious Circle" The New York Times . April 3, 2013. < http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/education/restorative-justice-programs-take-root-in-schools.html >.

[10] Hutchison and Wray.

[11] Graham Ellison and Peter Shirlow, "From War to Peace: Informalism, Restorative Justice and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland," in Restorative Justice: From Theory to Practice . (Emerald Group Publishing, 2008). < http://books.google.com/books?id=4sttqCszsngC >.

[12] Mark S. Umbreight, William Bradshaw, and Robert B. Coates "Victims of Severe Violence Meet the Offender: Restorative Justice Through Dialogue"  International Review of Victimology . September 1, 1999.  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/026975809900600405?journalCode=irva

[13] Alec MacGillis. "The Tragey of Baltimore." New York Times and ProPublica. March 12, 2019.  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/magazine/baltimore-tragedy-crime.html

Use the following to cite this article: Maiese, Michelle. "Restorative Justice." Beyond Intractability . Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: October 2003 < http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/restorative-justice >.

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Discourses on behaviour: A role for restorative justice?

Source: (2013) International Journal on School Disaffection. 10(2):45-61.

The description and management of difficult behaviour in schools has interested educational practitioners and researchers worldwide, including in the UK. Concerns have been raised about the use and implications of more dominant discourses, namely those of behaviourism and zero tolerance, for understanding student behaviour. This article presents research, conducted in a secondary school in Northern England, exploring restorative justice as an alternative. Transcripts from a series of school staff focus groups and the school behaviour policy were analysed, using critical discourse analysis, in order to address two questions: (1) what are the dominant discourses on behaviour amongst school staff within the school? and (2) what spaces are available for the construction of alternative discourses regarding behaviour and relational action? The analysis confirms the predominance of behaviourist and zero-tolerance discourses and a reliance on individualistic explanations regarding difficult behaviour. However, the presence of a range of discursive resources within the staff focus groups suggests the viable use of an alternative discourse. (authors’ abstract)

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