ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews existing material relating to youth justice and restorative practices. It provides an overview of historical and current material relating to youth crime and wrongdoing. It begins to note that restorative practices involve a journey. In contrast to a prison sentence or similar punishment, they are evolutionary in nature, and seek to bring healing and closure and transform behaviours to facilitate a more positive future. The implementation of restorative justice and practices in Britain has been on a much more piecemeal basis than in New Zealand. This may at least in part be due to the fact that restorative practices do not fall neatly into an easily defined set of activities. Although there is some similarity of principle and practice within the range restorative strategies, with many practices sharing ideas and principles, no underlying single theoretical base or agreed definition of what constitutes a restorative practice has emerged.
