The Sceptic and the Believer: The Psychology of Restorative Justice

There can be no doubt that over the past 30 years the field of restorative justice has made incredible progress. Since its revival in the 1970s (Gavrielides, 2011a), the restorative justice notion (whether in theory or practice) has been the subject of volumes of writings and the focus of billions of investments by governments, international bodies ¹ and philanthropists. Dating as far back as 2005, Van Ness recorded approximately 100 countries that utilize restorative justice (2005), while in 2011 Gavrielides identified 23 different types of prison-based restorative justice programmes in at least 84 countries (2011b, pp. 35–37). Umbreit (2008) estimated that there are over 300 victim–offender mediation programmes just in the USA and over 700 in Europe.