Restorative Justice: Contextual and cultural considerations

Hungarian Journal of Legal Studies, 2018

Over the past few decades, a novel approach to crime and conflict resolution has been gaining ground around the world. 'Restorative justice' revolves around the notions that crime is primarily a violation human relationships; the chief aim of the justice process should be to reconcile those most directly affected by the offending behaviour while addressing the injuries they suffered; the resolution of crime-related conflicts demands a positive effort on the part of victims and offenders and the assumption of responsibility by the community. Restorative justice is not a new concept-It was a prevalent justice model in early civilizations in Europe and Asia and remains so among many indigenous communities around the world. This paper outlines the broad philosophy of restorative justice, comments on the differences between restorative justice and other prevailing conceptions of justice and identifies the constitutive elements necessary for a restorative justice practice. The paper then considers contemporary restorative justice practices, presenting information on guiding principles, procedures and goals and identifying concerns that need to be addressed in the design and implementation of such practices.

This paper considers the applicability restorative justice literature in the transitional justice arena. The authors argue that while restorative justice is applied to a wide range of conflicts, the established literature is often of limited value within a transitional context. Insufficient attention is often paid to the inherent difficulties in importing theories, concepts and practices designed for the context of ‘settled’ societies into post-conflict environments. Significantly more consideration needs to be given to the practical operation of transitional justice mechanisms, as well as their underlying normative bases, so that they might live up to the claims of many commentators that transitional justice is ‘restorative’.

Journal of Global Ethics, 2018

The tools we have used to fashion justice have changed greatly over the past seventy years, and the changes have altered our understanding of what justice amounts to. The International Military Tribunals, pursued at Nuremberg and Tokyo, were conceived as a form of retribution to correct the injustices of the Second World War. These were paired with the victors' visions of reconstruction: the Marshall Plan and the Occupation of Japan. Many years later, in the wake of empire, different paradigms were conceived to fill the need for new paths forward. South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) provided a new route in 1995 centred upon truth-telling, amnesty, and forgiveness. These dimensions of reconciliation charted the path of restorative (rather than retributive) justice to ground a transition to democracy following the decades-long horrors of Apartheid. Broadly speaking, political reconciliation is concerned with the pursuit and realisation of respectful relationships between two or more communities in conflict, or relationships of oppression by one group over the other(s). In a world where oppression, repression, and persecution remain widespread, formal apologies, memorials, trials, and reparations have become commonplace. These and other processes of reconciliation, reclamation and (broadly) of transitional justice are the newer political tools that this issue of Journal of Global Ethics provides an opportunity to assess. Our willingness to face our histories and contemporary challenges in ways that create real space for new beginnings is pertinent to projects of political reconciliation and transitional justice. More precisely, being honest about these histories, and about the extent to which these histories continue to bear on the lives that communities are able to live today, can facilitate the forging of new relationships and new possibilities for the future. Committing to fostering processes and conditions that allow for healing, restitution, and (ultimately) justice in both post-conflict and settler-colonial societies remains critical. Such a commitment requires that we are willing to listen to the voices of those who have endured, and who continue to endure, many of these horrors. We need to be willing to listen to those intimately involved in existing processes of political reconciliation and transitional justice on the ground, as well as those who have played a role in framing those processes. We need to provide space for these voices, bringing their perspectives together in ways that can help to shape the work of creating communities that live together on just and peaceful terms. This special issue is, in one sense at least, an attempt to air important questions and contribute to conversations. We bring scholars concerned with the concepts and ideas of reconciliation and transitional justice alongside the voices of scholars and activists concerned with how these concepts and ideas have played out, and continue to play out, on the ground. In particular, we provide the necessary space for the voices of Indigenous scholars and activists (and their allies) to allow us to better understand how our theories and applications of reconciliation and transitional justice may succeed, may fall short and, ultimately, may be improved within and beyond settler-colonial states. At the very least, this issue attempts to support a platform upon which further and deeper conversations can be built. We begin with a collection of commentary upon Colleen Murphy's book The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice, published by Cambridge University Press, 2017. Sirkku

… Community Corrections Association (ICCA) Journal on …, 1997

With all the activity surrounding restorative justice and the diverse forms it is taking, it seems appropriate to address core areas concerning its its origins, practices, contexts, and challenges. Origins and Practices Twenty years ago, when the first victim-offender reconciliation programs were being set up in Canada and in the midwestern U.S., and when few academics or practitioners were aware of indigenous justice traditions, the term restorative justice did not exist. In subsequent years, it gradually emerged as a concept in the writings of Colson and Van Ness

In this study a component of long-term peacebuilding practice - restorative justice processing - was examined in South Africa’s unequal, transitional context. Based on multidisciplinary literature, Galtung’s (1996) notion of cultural-structural-direct violence, Cohen’s (2001) theory of denial, and empirical data, a conceptual argument was made that a conspiracy of silence (cultural violence) exists about the interaction of growing inequality (structural violence) and the levels of crime/social harm (direct violence). Victim offender mediation, as a form of restorative justice processing, was an embedded, (Yin, 1994) instrumental (Stake,1995) case which provided micro level information about peacebuilding practice. Peace studies was chosen as the core discipline in this multiperspectival study, as it allowed micro-macro linkages to be made deductively and inductively. Empirical data was generated by a 360° formation of six sub-units comprised of victims, offenders, practitioners, prosecutors, key experts, a Norwegian external subunit (which provided a keyhole comparison of activities inside the ‘black box’ of victim offender mediation), and observation. The research discovered four interlinked gaps in restorative justice processing. These gaps are contextual, conceptual, training and practice related. Patterns of denial - that manifested as procedural blindness, substantive deafness and a complicit silence about the interaction of cultural, structural and direct violence - resulted from the combined effects of these interlinked gaps. Recommendations for education, training and coaching, based on the conceptual argument and comprehensive model of findings, were developed to fill the interlinked gaps, so that restorative justice practitioners can be better placed to contribute to long-term peacebuilding in a structurally responsive way. A caveat applies: ultimately, society and individuals must change and restorative justice processing on its own can only take society part of the way towards social justice.

International Criminal Law Review (12), 2012

Restorative Justice and Transitional Justice are two distinct, through closely over-lapping, concepts which have been catapulted to the forefront of legal and criminological discourse over the course of the past two decades. Their growth has been nothing short of prolific: in both theoretical and practical terms. The conceptual overlap between restorative justice and transitional justice has been widely observed. Both discourses espouse similar values such as truth, accountability, reparation, reconciliation, conflict resolution and democratic participation. Both also offer a critique of overly retributive and adversarial justice structures, which have failed to involve communities, victims, and indeed perpetrators themselves, in orthodox processes. It has also been suggested that restorative justice can act as a catalyst for transitional justice through the creation of new community bonds and strengthening existing ones. It may also be used to reinforce the participatory potential of transitional justice mechanisms by including actors who have traditionally felt alienated from established legal processes and institutions. Indeed, Cordella has argued that a communicative conception of law ‘is a dyadic process that facilitates dialogue between community and transgressor’, which should allow communities to acknowledge their differences and identify transgressions as disputes among members. While restorative mechanisms are not the only means of facilitating such communication, it is undoubtedly the case that, in sharp contrast to conventional criminal justice processes, they maximise the potential for meaningful dialogue between victims, off enders and the community. Moreover, through opening this new space for communication, it is conceivable that restorative justice models may act as a social catalyst for broader inter-communal reconciliation.

Springer, 2022

Despite the clear connections between psychology, restorative justice, and peace across national and institutional contexts, there has been little direct engagement between the field of peace psychology and the growing theory, implementation, and research of restorative justice. ​ This timely collection of chapters written by international experts bridges the gap between peace psychology and restorative justice. The Editors combined their respective fields of expertise to start a much-needed debate on the potential but also risks that are associated when implementing restorative justice in the peace psychology field. The volume highlights how psychological theory and research can inform and evaluate the potential of restorative practices in formal and informal educational settings as well as the criminal justice space. The chapters cover both negative and positive peace across levels while introducing the reader to various case studies from across the world. All in all, the book explores how restorative justice can promote positive peace through its connection fostering dialogue, empathy, forgiveness, and other key psychological elements of peace.

British journal of community justice, 2014

Introduction This paper is intended as a small offering in response to the challenge posed by Muncie (2005), O'Malley (2002) and Stenson (2005) for criminological analysis of the globalisation of crime control to move from obsessive macro-theorising about 'its' shape and depth, and instead begin analysing the micro-level impact of all this globalised, criminological activity. The manuscript also serves as a response to Aas' call for our discipline to: '...take up an old debt of omission and explore more systematically connections between globalisation and colonisation [which is] essential if we are address the imbalances of power and the dynamics of othering and social exclusion in the present world order.' (2009:413) A further motivation for this paper is my wish to privilege the experiences of Indigenous peoples of contemporary manifestations of globalised European Justice (8), for as Fenelon and Muguia (2008:1657) rightly argue: 'In the telling of man&...