Restorative Justice

Are Conflicts Property? Re-Examining the Ownership of Conflict in Restorative Justice

“…These are not unimportant things, and we do not suggest these may not be meaningful to those involved. On the other hand, neither are these akin to what Christie appeared to suggest in terms of ownership of conflict, particularly where a growing amount of research on the institutionalisation of RJ has brought forth evidence of many of the same or similar problems Christie initially identified in his article – RJ practices that do not adequately take account of victim needs or involvement in favour of offender rehabilitation (Choi et al, 2012; Hoyle and Rosenblatt, 2016; Zernova, 2007), RJ practices in which police or convenor interests override those of victims or offenders (Campbell et al, 2006; Cutress, 2015; Laxminarayan, 2014; Maxwell, 2005), referral processes where judges or other professionals may be guided by other factors than who ‘owns’ the conflict or who should participate in its outcomes (Archibald and Llewellyn, 2006; Gavrielides, 2007; Suzuki and Wood, 2017) or RJ practices that ‘include’ victims and offenders but leave little to be figured out in terms of proscribed outcomes of such meetings (Choi et al, 2012; Hoyle et al, 2002).…”

Restorative Justice, Crime Victims and Penal Welfarism. Mapping and Contextualising Restorative Justice Policy in Scotland

“…This offender is a flesh-and-blood individual encouraged to ‘pay back’ the human costs of their actions (as the ‘Scotland’s Choice Report’ explicitly states). Such a rendering, which echoes early (1980s–1990s) RJ literature and policy in England and US (Zernova, 2007), ignores the possible macro-constraints of the offender’s choice as well as the fluid transactions between these two dimensions, emphasising a distinctive type of agency and conveying images of physical harm. The 2017 Guidance proposes a significant shift, with respect to this representation: the replacement of the ‘offender’, still recurrent in the early 2000s policy, with the ‘person who has harmed’, possibly expressing the intention of reducing ‘semantic’ stigmatisation.…”

“…This subject has been investigated from multiple (and often contrasting) normative, theoretical and methodological perspectives. However, while the criminological literature is abundant in empirical investigations on ‘how it works’ (see Crawford and Newburn, 2003; McEvoy et al, 2002; Rossner, 2013; Shapland et al, 2006; Zehr, 2005; Zernova, 2007), there is a lack of engagement with policy on RJ, in spite of the increasing regulation of this subject (Aertsen et al, 2006; von Hirsch et al, 2003). When policy on RJ is considered, then, this rarely happens in an analytically nuanced, historically documented and critical fashion.…”

Is restorative justice conferencing appropriate for youth offenders?

“…Zernova’s (2007a) interviews with 13 youth offenders who participated in RJC found that about half thought their participation was compulsory, and that more than half participated out of fear of returning to court. Further research by Zernova (2007b) found that facilitators employed a variety of techniques, such as probing, to elicit youth offenders’ consent to participate in RJC. Research in Ireland by Quigley et al (2015) found that three out of nine youth offenders interviewed thought they had no choice but to participate in RJC because they were told so by their probation officer or out of fear of being returned to custody.…”