Co-option, coercion and compromise: challenges of restorative justice in Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Restorative justice (RJ) encompasses a widely diverging set of practices whereby those most affected by crime are encouraged to meet, to discuss the effects of harms caused by one party to another, and to agree upon the best possible redress of harms when appropriate. In its inception in the late 1970s, RJ was conceptualized and developed as an alternative to formal criminal justice practices. Since this time, however, RJ has largely moved from being an alternative to criminal justice practices to an 'alternative' practice within criminal justice systems. This institutionalization has resulted in the significant growth of RJ practices, but has also resulted in RJ being used for criminal justice system goals that are at odds with the needs of victims or offenders. This paper examines the use of the Youth Justice GroupConferencing Program in Victoria, Australia. Drawing from interviews with conference conveners, our research highlights problems related to administrative 'constraints' and 'cooptions' in conferencing in terms of referrals, preparation of conference participants, and victim participation. Following presentation of findings, we conclude with a discussion of implications for the use of RJ within a highly institutionalized setting.

Institutionalising restorative justice for adults in Scotland: An empirical study of criminal justice practitioners’ perspectives

“…However, our interviewees were also acutely aware of the detrimental co-opting effects of involving state institutions in the development of RJ, recalling the ‘purist’ (McCold, 2000) critique to the institutionalisation of RJ, particularly in its most radical expression (Maglione, 2020a). This nuanced position also resonates with empirical research findings generated in Europe and beyond, for example, Belgium (Lemonne, 2018), Australia (Suzuki and Wood, 2017) and Canada (Asadullah and Morrison, 2021), which show how the institutionalisation of RJ allows a significant growth in terms of provision while threatening the normative integrity of RJ, for instance, ‘instrumentalising’ victims’ needs to offenders’ rehabilitation. This threat entails the possibility of bending restorative values to criminal justice aims (cf.…”

“…After a background section and an outline of methodology, the article presents the key results under three macro-themes -views on RJ and RJ policy, challenges and risks of institutionalising RJ and future prospects. These results are then discussed in light of both the critical criminological literature (Hudson, 2007;Maglione, 2020a;Pavlich, 2005;Woolford and Nelund, 2019) and empirical findings on the institutionalisation of RJ (Asadullah and Morrison, 2021;Gavrielides, 2016;Suzuki and Wood, 2017), focusing on the character of Scottish RJ, relationships between RJ and criminal justice, and the impact of specific organisational and political dynamics on shaping Scottish RJ. The last section of the article considers the implications for practice, policy and research, at the national level and beyond.…”

Discursive representations of restorative justice in international policies

“…As Pavlich and Thorlakson (2017) highlight, restorative justice’s early aspirations were to work through different lenses, paradigms and approaches when addressing conflict and harm, resisting the bureaucratic, alienating and adversarial focus of criminalizing institutions (see also Pavlich, 2018; Strang and Braithwaite, 2001; Zehr, 2015; Zehr and Toews, 2004). However, as Pavlich (2018: 464) writes, instead of grappling with the complexities posed by plural and often competing visions of justice, so-called maximalist versions of restorative justice were translated into programmes, generating compromises and accommodations that ended up homogenizing restorative justice within the language and forms of criminal justice system (see also Christie, 2013, 2015; Gray and Lauderdale, 2007; Suzuki and Wood, 2017; Wood and Suzuki, 2016). In other words, ‘the aspirations to promote a distinct moral and practical alternative to criminal justice [were] undermined by the manner in which restorative justice position[ed] itself as supplementary and ultimately subordinate to state justice empires’ (Pavlich, 2005: 21).…”

From ‘what works’ to ‘how it works’ in research on restorative justice conferencing: the concept of readiness

“…Despite this importance, preparation is often compromised in restorative justice practices because preparation sometimes cannot be adequately provided due to time constraints (Choi, Bazemore & Gilbert, 2012;Suzuki & Wood, 2017a). Moreover, even if the preparation is properly conducted, some participants may still lack understanding or have unrealistic expectations (Vanfraechem, 2005).…”