The legal systems and the judiciary in many countries have been changed and reformed, with the aim of dispensing justice quicker and more effectively. Some reforms have tried a less adversarial approach to resolving legal disputes, for example, Therapeutic Jurisprudence (TJ) and Restorative Justice (RJ). The objective of this article is to describe how institutionalized these movements are in the United States and the roles played by judges in this process. The data collection involved document analysis, observation of court-hearings, and interviews with 13 judges from several judicial areas involved in TJ and/or RJ judicial proceedings in the United States. Data analysis was undertaken using content analysis and the software NVivo. The results provide evidence that (a) these movements are in a process of divergent change implementation; (b) judges who engage with these approaches act as institutional entrepreneurs; and (c) the judges interviewed can be classified into four roles that are complementary in the promotion of TJ/RJ: promoter, author, convener, and maintainer.

The Brazilian prison population in 2016 had increased by more than 700%, compared with the situation in the early 1990s, from 90 thousand to 726.7 thousand. The ordinary response to prison overcrowding came through changes to the justice system, such as Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Restorative Justice. Although these new processes are socially relevant, there are few studies about them anywhere, but especially in Brazil. This study seeks to discuss the perceptions of Brazilian judges upon these new ways of dispensing justice from the perspective of institutional change theory. The data collection involved document analysis, court-hearing observations, and interviews with 14 key-actors in the Brazilian justice system. The results show four dimensions— beliefs, motivations, commitment, and intergroup relations—that characterize the roles played by Brazilian judges working with Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Restorative Justice. This movement can be classified as the modal type of institutional change called layering and “radical” frame blending.

No abstract