ABSTRACT
This chapter has three overarching aims. First, I examine the case of black mothers involved in the prison and foster care systems as possible subjects of a restorative justice framework. Second, by examining the case of black mothers, I want to think more broadly and critically about the meaning of restorative justice. Who are the victims and who needs to make amends? Who needs to be reconciled and who should be held accountable? To whom should justice be restored? Finally, I call on scholars and advocates to imagine a restorative justice approach that goes beyond reforming the carceral state to fundamentally transforming the meaning of justice for black mothers and then, perhaps, the meaning of restorative justice itself.
