ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how and why an interdisciplinary approach to Restorative Justice (RJ) is important, by sending a message that criminologists, psychologists, lawyers and other scholars can work together to produce new knowledge about RJ as a topic of scientific inquiry. It develops an approach to RJ through the lens of the Good Lives Model. The chapter explores that in the investigation of social justice processes there are no undeniable truths. The very term restorative justice remains contested. Gavrielides explains that the many definitions of RJ tend to be divided into two wider groups in its extensive literature. There are also the wider, value-based definitions in which RJ is regarded as an ethos with practical goals, among which is to restore harm by including affected parties in a encounter and a process of understanding through voluntary and honest dialogue. Restore is an offender-focused intervention programme that aims to promote the understanding that everyone has a potential to change.
