ABSTRACT
Restorative justice (RJ) is an alternative approach to traditional forms of punishment, an approach which emphasizes repairing harm and restoring relationships and wholeness for all parties involved: victims, offenders, and their communities. The International Institute for Restorative Practices found that RJ correlated to a decrease in disciplinary referrals, detentions, suspensions, and overall disruptive behavior. Around the world, RJ practices are gaining popularity around the world, in many different forms: not only victim-offender mediation (VOM), but alternative youth courts, community dialogues, and truth and reconciliation committees. The critical consciousness RJ students develop in high schools is instructive for prisoners as well. This can be heard as a more radical proposition: that, like the training of high school students to become experts in RJ mediation, those most affected by the institution are those most poised to change it. Thus, prisoners themselves are the agents of change in a criminal justice system.
