Restorative justice seeks to bring those that have created harm together with those that have been harmed, and often stands in contrast to retributive and punitive approaches to justice that centre the state in the responses to crime and harm. Restorative justice approaches are becoming increasingly integrated into parts of the criminal justice system, and this paper examines the evidence for such applications in the context of youth violence and policing. The evidence is built on work conducted for the Metropolitan Police Service, the UKs largest police force with over 30,000 officers serving 8 million people in and around London. It does this through a Rapid Evidence Assessment, which utilises the search and sifting principles of systematic reviews on a more limited basis, tailored to the needs of a specific audience, and conducted within a limited timescale. The results of the assessment are broken down into three areas: benefits, challenges, and deployment considerations. The studies identified through the assessment suggest that restorative justice and restorative practice can form an important part of an overall strategy to help reduce both incidents of youth violence as well as the longer-term impacts of that violence when it has taken place. We conclude that in the context of violence and young people, effective restorative justice police practice should embrace a whole-system approach that incorporates multi-agency working and consistently engages with young people at risk of becoming violent offenders or victims.

Despite policy and guidance stating that all victims of crime should have ‘equal access’ to restorative justice in England and Wales, victim participation remains low. Here, the ways in which criminal justice agents – responsible for providing victim services, including restorative justice – offer restorative justice to victims are explored. Drawing upon empirical data collected from criminal justice organisations in two police force areas, this article outlines what factors lie behind the inconsistencies found across police forces in terms of structure and delivery of restorative justice. Work pressures, differing views of the suitability or effectiveness of restorative justice and a lack of systematic guidance that underpins the work culture of criminal justice organisations all impede victims’ access to restorative justice. This paper concludes with recommendations for embedding a culture of restorative justice within criminal justice organisations based upon the principles of inclusivity and engagement.

Internationally, prisoner mortality rates are up to 50% above those in the community. Although prisoner deaths are frequent and have significant implications across a broad range of stakeholder groups, these harms are rarely acknowledged. We address this by presenting original data from semi-structured interviews with 19 senior Prison Service staff (representing 8 prisons and 11 regions) and 16 Ombudsman investigators in England and Wales. These professional groups have received limited consideration in previous research. Without negating implications for bereaved families and other prisoners, we demonstrate that scholars have grasped neither the impacts of prisoner deaths on investigators, nor the extent of the harms experienced through investigations. All stakeholders benefit from reducing prisoner suicides, but death investigations do not enable stakeholders’ ‘shared ground’ to be mobilised. Currently, death investigations compound the harms of deaths.

In prisons, participatory mechanisms can foster important outcomes including fairness, legitimacy and dignity. Complaints are one significant (symbolic) mechanism facilitating prisoner participation. Ombud institutions/ Ombudsmen handle complaints externally, providing unelected accountability mechanisms and overseeing prisons around the world. A fair complaints process can stimulate prisoner voice, agency and rights protection, potentially averting self-harm and violence, and facilitating systemic improvements. However, complaints mechanisms are little studied. Addressing this gap, we: i) contextualise discussion by demonstrating that prisoners’ actions have directly shaped complaints mechanisms available today; ii) outline prison complaints mechanisms in the case study jurisdiction of England and Wales; and iii) provide a critical review of literature to assess whether prison complaints systems are, in practice, participatory, inclusive and fair? We conclude that complaints mechanisms hold clear potential to enhance prison legitimacy, facilitate prisoner engagement and agency, and improve wellbeing and safety. However, myriad barriers prevent prisoners from participating in complaints processes, including: culture; fear; accessibility; timeliness; emotional repression; and bureaucracy. The process of complaining and experiences of these barriers are uneven across different groups of prisoners. Our article provides a springboard for future empirical research.

Since the establishment of Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) in England and Wales in 1999, all victims of youth crime, must, in accordance with national instruments, be consulted by YOTs as to their wishes and provided with the opportunity to get involved in a restorative justice (RJ) initiative. RJ should be the underlying principle for all youth justice disposals and victims must be invited to be part of the process. If, as evidenced and consistently outlined in guidance, policy and research, the fundamental principle of inclusivity and victim participation are imperative to RJ, then to what extent are YOTs in England and Wales ‘fully’ restorative? Drawing upon the findings of a larger empirical study, this article specifically examines the use of RJ in seven YOTs in England and Wales to demonstrate that RJ has not been fully integrated into practice nor widely embedded into YOT culture. Victims of youth crime, continue to be systematically excluded from RJ. This paper outlines the disparities in the delivery of RJ amongst YOTS, demonstrates the reasons for service delivery disparities and concludes by evidencing best practice.