ABSTRACT
It is undeniably true, as Mika and Zehr (2003: 135) claim, that ‘the momentum of restorative justice [RJ] in the past twenty years has been breathtaking.’ It is also undeniably true that RJ has assumed the status of a ‘global social movement’ (Braithwaite 1996), to which the bewildering expansion and diversity of projects in its name is testimony (Miers 2001). As Daly (2002: 57) writes, ‘[RJ] is used not only in adult and juvenile criminal matters, but also in a range of civil matters, including family welfare and child protection, and disputes in schools and workplace settings. Increasingly, one finds the term associated with the resolution of broader political conflicts such as the reconstruction of post-apartheid South Africa, post-genocide Rwanda, and post- sectarian Northern Ireland.’ Clearly RJ has become something of an umbrella term, incorporating projects that are vastly different in scope and intent. Nonetheless, there do seem to be core elements running through most of the projects which bear its name thereby providing them with some sense of unity. These core elements include non-judicial processes of inquiry into criminal behaviour, with many of the formal evidential and procedural rules relaxed. These processes are likely to be facilitated by the criminal justice authorities but it is intended that victims and offenders, often in the company of their families and supporters, will be at their centre. The main purpose of such hearings is for the offender, in some way, to repair the damage they have caused (and frequently, but not necessarily, be themselves actively reintegrated into the community they have harmed (Braithwaite 1989)). This is often achieved through the delivery of an apology amid an outpouring of sentiment from all parties which it is intended will help to bring the dispute to a close (Tavuchis 1991; Bottoms 2003). Apart from anything else then, RJ is a more expressive form of justice than had previously been allowed for in the formal criminal justice system of most modern societies, allowing for an ebb and flow of human sentiment during the proceedings: that it is so is largely because it is a more ‘decentred’ modality of justice. That is, it is framed (in varying degrees at least) by community values and ideas of justice rather than being dominated by the bureaucratic interests of the criminal justice authorities.
