ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is perhaps the most comprehensive and certainly the most up-to-date collection on restorative justice. It discusses the democratic principle and other democratic practices using the author's experience from the schools where he pioneered restorative justice with inspiring teams of restorative pathbreakers. A great thing about the rule of law is that we have a universal right to access it, or at least we should. Whether we have been a victim of crime, of an oppressive marriage, of breach of contract or consumer deception, we have a right of access to a court of law to adjudicate that conflict. Historical research on crime and justice, the tradition in which Howard Zehr started as a young scholar, has accumulated helpfully.
