ABSTRACT
Restorative Justice (RJ) as an academic and professional discipline is growing exponentially, and as a result is facing at least three critical transitions: defining identity, nurturing transformative practice, and sustaining adaptability. There is a clear danger of RJ being co-opted as one more “professional service” in our menu of standardized social welfare responses to criminal legal reform. This chapter argues for an understanding of RJ as an expanding “social movement”. A new generation of RJ is being enacted by a critical justice movement aimed at addressing personal violations, collective historical harms, and racial oppression and structural violence in integrated ways.
