ABSTRACT

During the last four decades, we have seen restorative justice evolve from a specialised criminal justice reform policy – bringing victims, offenders and others together in response to a crime – to a generalised range of practices, proactive and reactive, formal and informal, that unlock the potential to enhance all human social interaction. This chapter explores the history of the restorative conference process that the author pioneered in 1991 in Wagga Wagga, Australia, in order to argue that ‘restorative justice’ and the more comprehensive term, ‘restorative practice,’ will achieve their greatest and most enduring impact by becoming increasingly explicit – integrating diverse possibilities within existing restorative terminology and practice – but at the same time expanding the paradigm. The methodology used to develop the key argument is a combination of experimentation, related experience, and primary and secondary research sources. The chapter contributes to the Handbook’s ambitions by emphasising the critical importance of explicit practice if the restorative movement is to achieve its true potential.

By adopting the most fundamental yet broadest hypothesis – that doing things ‘with’ people is better than doing things ‘to’ them or ‘for’ them – we recognise that relationship building is not just a technique for effective restorative justice but provides the underlying rationale for a healthier civil society.