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Victims & Offenders

An International Journal of Evidence-based Research, Policy, and Practice

ISSN: 1556-4886 (Print) 1556-4991 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uvao20

Four Challenges in the Future of Restorative Justice

William R. Wood & Masahiro Suzuki

Restorative Justice, Victims & Offenders

Published online: 18 Feb 2016.

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School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University, Southport, Australia

youth and criminal justice practices. Since this time, RJ has experienced

rapid growth in theory and practice. At the same time, much of this growth has come

from expansion in lower-end criminal justice responses to crime, and in the increasing

use of the term “restorative” for a widening host of practices and interventions. RJ

has also faced problems related to its increasing institutionalization, resulting in divergence

from earlier aims and goals. In this article, we set forth what we see as the four

biggest challenges facing the future of RJ, namely problems related to definition, institutionalization,

displacement, and relevance of RJ practices. We follow with discussion

of possible future directions of RJ.

That restorative justice (RJ) has a future seems fairly certain after almost

40 years of development, growth, and institutionalization in virtually all

Western countries and in a large number of other states around the world.

Far from being a radical prescription for the ills of the criminal justice system,

however, as practiced today RJ functions less as an alternative to criminal justice

practices than as an alternative sanction within them (Dünkel, Horsfield,

promises of many RJ advocates have given way to a more instrumental

and institutional variety of RJ practices. Following trends in criminological

research and crime policy, RJ research has become decidedly more “evidencedriven”

have also increasingly become administered from the “top down” (Crawford &

Address correspondence to William R. Wood, School of Criminology and

Criminal Justice, Griffith University, Southport QLD 4221, Australia. E-mail:

w.wood@griffith.edu.au

1

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of the current literature are no longer those of criminal justice transformation

as much as they are goals of program improvement and efficacy, development

of theory, and discussion of policy and implementation.

its “impossible dreams,” but neither has it failed as have so many other “good

ideas” of criminal justice reform or crime control. Fifty years from now, the

idea that something good can potentially come out of an offender, a victim, and

other parties sitting down together to discuss harms caused, accountability,

and ways to make amends will still seem like a good idea to many people.

Yet at the same time, it is not at all clear what RJ will look like 50—or even

20—years from now. Primarily, it is impossible to know what larger trends in

criminal justice will emerge. However, RJ’s past growth and development, as

well as its current practices, suggest trajectories in the future that will likely

bring it into increasing conflict with many of its core aims (at least historically),

as well as present problems—if perhaps less in terms of its growth, then more

in terms of quality of practice and its functions in criminal justice systems.

In this paper we address what we see as the most immediate challenges

facing RJ in the near future, particularly within its use in Anglophone counties.

institutionalization, displacement, and relevance. Each of these overlap, but

(i.e., applied) challenges or problems. Following analysis of these problems,

we conclude with a discussion of likely directions or possible redress for each

of these challenges or problems.

The problem of the definition of RJ is, as Daly (2016, this issue) notes, a “vexed

problem.” Daly gives several reasons why this is the case, but we wish to focus

on one particular aspect we see as the most problematic for the future of RJ.

Since its inception, RJ has grown significantly in terms of its use, but it has

also become increasingly hybridized and diffuse. Beyond the numerous variations

in conferencing, the term “restorative” is now applied to a variety of

practices—community reparation boards, surrogate victim (or offender) meetings,

community service, and so on. It is also now used in myriad settings such

as schools, prisons, and workplaces, and in contexts including not only criminal

justice but transitional justice (i.e., truth and reconciliation commissions),

institutional responses to abuse, and so on.

Thus, while the use of restorative conferencing has grown, so has the

definition of “restorative justice” continued to expand and to be applied to a

widening host of practices beyond conferencing or other types of face-to-face

meetings between victims, offenders, and other parties. It is this expansion we

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of these debates have focused on the “purist” versus “maximalist” positions (c.f.

encourages outcomes to repair harms caused by crime (Bazemore & Walgrave,

Yet these debates are almost 20 years old. In this time, the use of what

people call “restorative justice” has clearly exceeded the purist position in

representing something more than conferencing or other meetings between

victims, offenders, and other parties. On the other hand, neither has RJ

emerged into a more “fully-fledged” systematic response to crime as set forth

is apparent is that the term “restorative” has continued to expand and to be

applied to a growing number of already existing and new innovative programs,

a problem we see in terms of the growing plasticity of the concept of RJ itself.

Below, we give three examples of this plasticity, which we see as emblematic of

the increasing hybridity of RJ that is expanding so much as to make the term

potentially meaningless.

The first example is the use of RJ in prison settings. Since the late

1990s numerous “restorative” prison programs have been implemented within

English-speaking countries. With few exceptions, however, such programs do

not include the use of conferencing between victims and offenders. Rather,

such programs tend to be oriented on RJ “principles” toward goals of offender

Sycamore Tree Project do include surrogate victims in their curriculum (Prison

Fellowship Australia, n.d.), but by and large what is called “restorative justice”

within prisons is something very different than that outside of prisons. Dhami

experiences of imprisonment which may result in an increase in prisons’

utility in terms of their efforts to reduce crime via these alternative strategies.”

represents an emerging view within RJ that “embraces the concept of

offender-oriented restorative justice,” a view that “reflects the needs of offenders

and victims along with emphasizing the fact that the offender must make

amends, change, and engage in rehabilitative efforts.”

It is not difficult to see the “language” of RJ in these goals. At the same

time, it also not difficult to see these goals as embedded in either crime reduction

strategies or correctionalism, not (as we have learned over so many years

from RJ literature) the goal of the restoration of harms. Indeed, the notion

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almost total reversal of many earlier RJ critiques of state criminal justice

practices as “offender focused.” To suggest that conferencing—a practice that

involves primary stakeholders toward the goals of victim redress and offender

accountability—and prison rehabilitation or compliance programs can both

be subsumed under the banner of “restorative justice” severely conflates the

distinct aims and practices of each.

The second example we give is the increasing rebranding of community

service as “restorative” or as a means of repairing harms to the community.

Such rebranding has occurred within prisons, but also within community corrections,

where in many cases there appears to have been little change to

programs that involve the use of offenders for menial work, often in stigmatizing

there are numerous examples of prison work being cited as an example of RJ

of such work being performed in ways that are distinct from other forms

of prison work. In the case of the Inside Out Trust program in the United

Kingdom, for example, an evaluation of the program found that the Trust

“developed prison projects based on restorative justice principles” in several

U.K. prisons between 1994 and 2007, including “activities as repairing bicycles,

refurbishing wheelchairs, upgrading computers and producing Braille

and large print books for charities, both in the UK and in poorer countries”

of prison workshops. Nor did this work in any way involve victim input or

redress. Rather, the label “restorative” was applied because prisoners apparently

found the work meaningful, and the outcomes of such work were oriented

toward social benefits for others. While these may be important goals, there is

nothing to distinguish them as “restorative” per se in that prison work itself

has been widely lauded as reintegrative for offenders and as having social

benefits for communities for over two centuries.

Similar problems extend to the use of community service as “restorative”

outside of prisons. As a community sanction, service work has been readily subsumed

into successive social logics of punishment—first in the early 1970s as

an alternative to incarceration, then as a means of offender reintegration in the

late 1970s, as an intermediate punitive sanction in the 1980s and early 1990s,

and increasingly as a “restorative sanction” since that time. Again, there are

few examples in the literature of program redesign or reorientation of community

programs have been merely rebranded as “restorative” for having purported

means by which offenders can “make amends” to the community.

The final example we give is the recent implementation of the Australian

Defence Forces (ADF) “Restorative Engagement Program” as a means of

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(and a support person of their choice) to meet with an ADF representative

in a facilitated conference to offer an account of harms caused to them and

explain the impacts of these harms. It also allows for the ADF representative

to acknowledge harms for allegations deemed “plausible” by the task force

in the original), “The Framework is underpinned by the best practice principles

and values of restorative practice and mediation. These principles and values

defined, are in line with much RJ literature, but what is missing is the offender,

the ability of victims to address offenders, and the goal of offender accountability

that is generally recognized as central to RJ practices (Braithwaite &

It is not yet clear whether this program is helpful for victims. However,

the larger point is not whether this or other “restorative” programs or practices

are useful or effective for their particular aims. Rather, our question is

shared aims, goals, processes, and outcomes? The three examples we

have discussed—RJ prison programs, “restorative” community service, and the

ADF “restorative engagement program”—all have distinctly different goals.

The first tends to be largely oriented toward offender rehabilitation, compliance,

and reintegration; the second toward the making of amends with the

community; and the third toward victim redress.

All of these fit nicely within more traditional RJ aims, but only in piecemeal.

compliance, and reintegration, what makes such programs distinct from

other similar “nonrestorative” programs—for example, programs that use the

concept of thinking errors to address cognitive distortions, including distortions

about the reality of harms caused to others? Or again, what exactly is

being “restored” in the ADF “restorative engagement program” where victims

can hear an apology from an ADF representative but never have the chance to

directly address the offender or have voice in offender accountability? How

is such a program distinct from “nonrestorative” institutional responses to

abuse—where institutions admit harms and even perhaps make amends, but

those who directly caused the harms are absent from the process (and often

from accountability)?

It is our contention that as the scope of RJ continues to include more

and more “restorative goals” or “outcomes,” many of these (including those we

have discussed) can just as easily be subsumed into different “nonrestorative”

frameworks with little or no difference in practice. This is not a comment on

the quality or effectiveness of such programs, but rather on the increasing

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plasticity of the concept itself in application. In terms of the problem of definition,

the future of RJ as we see it depends significantly on whether a focus

been harmed remain central to such a definition, or whether RJ continues to

expand into piecemeal programs and outcomes where the difference between

“restorative” and other types of programs becomes increasingly blurred.

RJ originated in response to critiques of traditional criminal justice systems

of allowing offenders to admit harms, make amends, and successfully reintegrate

much of the early focus of RJ was on developing practices that offered an alternative

to formal criminal justice practices. Yet in the almost 40 years since,

this has not happened. On the contrary, most RJ programs have been institutionalized

within conventional criminal justice systems, often coupled with

diversionary practices or as an alternative sanction within them (Shapland,

The institutionalization has occurred for numerous reasons. Primarily,

conferencing tend to be a viable option only after an offender has been

mechanisms, and thus is dependent upon the criminal justice system for

this function. Also, while many early RJ programs in the United States were

developed outside of formal criminal or youth justice systems, the need for

sustained funding and growth has made them more dependent upon alignment

and New Zealand, RJ was implemented as part of state youth justice practices

over time, they have frequently become more attuned to victim and offender

needs that cannot be met immediately though conferencing—victim support

services, for example, or offender treatment and “wrap-around programs”

youth or criminal justice systems for ensuring compliance with conferencing

within or depend on youth and criminal justice systems.

The institutionalization of RJ practices has allowed for its growth and

increasing acceptance as a more “mainstream” alternative sanction. Yet the

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question of whether RJ ideals can effectively be achieved within youth and

criminal justice systems has been one of significant debate and focus in the

related to the increasing institutionalization of RJ. Perhaps the most

frequently cited problem is the risk of RJ goals and “best practice” being

in victim-offender mediations in the United States and found that victims

were often marginalized because some of them did not receive preparation for

the meeting, were pressured to behave in a certain way (such as to accept

apologies), or felt threatened by offenders and their supporters. Similarly,

participants in the United Kingdom that a majority of participants felt the

process was offender-centered and focused mainly on offender rehabilitation

Co-option of RJ may also take the form of program goals such as case

processing, growth, and efficiency being given priority over the needs of victims

that they are frequently pressured to deliver RJ within a limited timeframe

to meet the needs of victims and offenders may be compromised in

practice. Another problem is the lack of adequate preparation, especially for

victims, in terms of achieving restorative goals (Choi, Bazemore, & Gilbert,

of the goals of RJ to some degree, it was difficult to achieve restorative

outcomes because victims had difficulty viewing “the situation through a

restorative lens.” Moreover, such lack of preparation can also lead to victim

absence. Research on a police cautioning program in Thames Valley demonstrated

that some victims refused to participate due to lack of interest, while

others did so due to lack of understanding of what was involved in the process

the victim participation rate and level of victim understanding of the process

Aside from the problem of co-option, the institutionalization of RJ has led

to the increased inclusion of gatekeepers such as judges or police officers that

may not be familiar with (or may even be opposed to) RJ principles. Numerous

studies have found cases where gatekeepers either impede the referral process

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Finally, problems in the institutionalization of RJ highlight the power

of institutions to legitimize and even implicitly define the term “restorative”

through program design and implementation, through the setting of goals and

indicators of “success,” and though funding. On a systemic level, the most obvious

paradox between RJ’s alternative conceptualization of “harm” on the one hand

and the acceptance of crime as defined by state criminal justice systems on

the other. Harm is what the state says it is, and this in turn structures how

offenders (and particularly victims) are able to engage with or are excluded

from restorative processes—the types and nature of offenses that may be considered

appropriate for RJ, the level of expected compliance or amends from

offenders and subsequent redress (or even recognition and participation) for

victims, and so on.

On a jurisdictional or program level, the power of institutions to define

what is “restorative” may or may not be in the best interests of victims or

offenders, particularly where program benchmarks and key indicators of success

issue) comparison of RJ programs ten years ago and today in the United

Kingdom illustrates a key problem in this respect, namely that while institutionalization

may lead to the “growth” of RJ legislation and programs, this does

not necessarily translate into the development and implementation of lessons

learned or of better practice. On the contrary, it may lead to more entrenched

and entangled practices where definitions of “success” (or even redefinitions of

RJ) are subsumed into system goals.

The third problem we discuss is one we call “displacement.” By this term

we mean the degree to which RJ has moved into previously existing informal

some countries such as the United Kingdom has displaced or been coupled

issue). In the United States, a large amount of the growth of RJ has come

in terms of replacing (or being coupled with) diversionary programs, particularly

in all Anglophone countries, the growth of RJ has come largely in the

the exception of New Zealand and some Australian states, where conferencing

is more regularly used for more serious offenses within youth justice

systems.

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For many such cases there are still legitimate victim needs and possibilities

for offender accountability. Yet RJ practices are also used in cases where

they are not necessarily needed—where there is no identifiable victim, where

victims choose not to participate, or where harms are at best negligible (Doak

has moreover found that the use of RJ has expanded lower end criminal justice

It is thus not clear how much of RJ’s “growth” reflects the emergence

of new programs or practices in lieu of other formal or informal sanctions,

and how much this growth reflects the addition or “rebranding” of already

existing criminal justice system practices and interventions. It is clearer that

the integration of RJ into criminal justice systems has largely been in terms

resulted in RJ not as an “alternative” as much as an “addition” to

existing practices or sanctions such as fines, community service, diversion or

practices have in some cases displaced less formal justice practices, they have

generally not in turn replaced many of the “informal” requisite conditions

attached to cautions, diversion, or community supervision as much as become

a part of them.

lower-end offending as the “ghettoization of restorative justice.” We have mentioned

this above in terms of the problems of displacement, and Maruna is

hardly the only one to question RJ’s continuing relevance in the 21st century,

particularly in Anglophone countries where its growth has come largely

more serious violent offenses, but this remains a marginal use of RJ (Miller,

The continued relevance of RJ is related as well not only to whether it

can move beyond an “alternative punishment” for lesser or youth offenses,

but in relation to many of its older alignments with social justice issues—

alignments that have generally faded over time as RJ has become more

established within the criminal justice system and moved in practice toward

program improvement and efficacy, and in research toward empirical verification

and development of theory. At its inception, RJ was seen by many people

as a promising means of addressing not only problems of victim exclusion

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and offender accountability, but also meso and macro social problems as they

intersected with criminal justice. These included a focus of many early RJ

Remarks para. 3) argued almost two decades ago that one major risk facing the

RJ movement then was that “concern for the overrepresentation of people of

color in our juvenile and criminal justice systems could easily be lost with a

hasty and exclusive focus on restorative interventions.”

But since this time, RJ literature and research has been largely inattentive

to problems of race and ethnicity in its own practices, as well as within criminal

justice practices more broadly. The exception to this is the focus that has

been given to indigenous justice within RJ literature. Some proponents have

argued that RJ is rooted in part within indigenous justice practices (Consedine

these claims have been contested both in terms of the notion that RJ is predicated

issue).

Outside of claims regarding indigenous peoples, RJ research and practitioners

have been mostly silent on questions of how restorative programs may

or may not be culturally appropriate or relevant for other racial and ethnic

over the degree to which RJ may represent a white or Eurocentric view

p. 157) note “There are few empirical studies of how gender and other social

relations (such as class, race, and age) are expressed in RJ practices,” and

indeed their focus on gender—particularly where it intersects with race, ethnicity,

indigenousness, and social class—only further complicates the problem

of the lack of RJ practice and research into these problems.

Problems of racism, discrimination, and overrepresentation in Western

criminal justice systems are endemic. As recent events in the United States

and other countries have shown, there is a widespread sense within black,

Latino, indigenous, and other communities that the criminal justice system

is racist in practice (i.e., policing, sentencing, and so on) and reflects in a

larger sense the social stratification and marginalization of racial and ethnic

minorities. The Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, which has

emerged in part as a result of the continued police shootings of unarmed blacks

(but more broadly as a social movement focused on addressing the systematic

violence and discrimination towards blacks) speaks to the degree to which

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many communities have a deeply internalized sense of marginalization and

of social marginalization, neither has it (with a few exceptions) looked either

empirically or critically at how questions of race, gender, and social class intersect

with what have traditionally been seen as “core” RJ values—victimization

and victim redress, offender accountability and reintegration, and community

empowerment and efficacy.

conceptualization of crime as “harms,” but on the other hand being beholden

to state definitions of crime—is probably nowhere more relevant than in the

racialized bifurcation of criminal justice. With a few exceptions, RJ theory

and research in Western countries has done little in terms of conceptualizing

the state as an “offender” in this regard. Yet this is not only a theoretical

argued that community-level justice programs are likely to fail where community

dimensions related to structural factors such as segregation, poverty,

unemployment, and so on are not taken into account. There is little evidence

that RJ practices attempt this or even give attention to this in any widespread

sense. It is impossible to know without any focused empirical research on

these questions, but our larger point is that given the massive amount of

The question of the continued relevance of RJ is not one of whether or

not its practices can remedy structural inequality or systematic discrimination.

No criminal justice program or intervention can achieve such a task, and

in terms of social reform criminal justice policies are generally poor vehicles

for social transformation. The lack of attention to issues of race, gender, and

any failure to solve structural problems as much as it is a critical oversight of

how social stratification and cultural differences may in turn structure social

interactions within restorative processes—in terms of imbalances in social and

cultural capital among participants; in terms of cultural differences in rituals

of apology, accountability, and amends; and indeed in terms of who may

be included or excluded from RJ as an “alternative” justice practice. It is not

a coincidence that serious violent crime is socially concentrated along these

trajectories, and as we argue below, the continued relevance of RJ depends significantly

on whether or not it is able to encapsulate and address these more

cogently within its practices.

In this final section we note what we see as possible “futures” of RJ given

its recent past and current practices. We also offer what we see as some very

tentative prescriptions for the problems we have identified.

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First, we see the problem of definition as one that is unlikely to change

in the near future. For better, and for worse, RJ has become an appealing

“brand” that is being applied to an ever-increasing scope of programs and practices.

Given the ideological implosion that is occurring in the United States

and elsewhere (particularly with policy makers) of the tough-on-crime policies

that have dominated criminal justice over the last quarter century or more,

RJ represents an attractive alternative to the vacuum left in the wake of this

implosion.

Yet as an “alternative,” RJ is not currently well-poised within Western

adversarial criminal justice systems, particularly in Anglophone countries,

to fill this vacuum. Primarily, as noted above, most RJ practices are postadjudicative

or diversionary—in essence, lacking any agency regarding the

identification and investigation of crimes, the arresting of offenders, the adjudication

of offenses, and so on. Until it is potentially able to do so (as was

envisioned in its earlier development as a more comprehensive alternative to

criminal justice practices), it is in our estimation more correct to think of RJ

(as Daly has noted in this issue) as a “justice mechanism,” not as any comprehensive

alternative to current justice practices. Continuing with this idea,

we envision that RJ will continue to “grow,” but not necessarily expand in

terms of its functions in criminal justice system practices. Rather, following

recent trends, it is more likely that the term “restorative” will continue to be

applied to a growing host of already existing and new innovative practices

that may have noteworthy goals, but that at the core do not involve meetings

between victims, offenders, and other vested parties that come together with

the respective aims of redress, accountability, and the making of amends.

While definitions are likely to remain problematic, RJ practitioners and

researchers have at the same time produced a significant amount of work

on the problems related to the institutionalization of RJ within criminal justice

systems. This research paints a picture of significant challenges facing

restorative conferencing. It also provides more concrete and realistic avenues

through which RJ can continue to grow, at least in terms of the quality of

programs and restorative processes. As we discussed above, a number of significant

studies on RJ (those beyond the use of satisfaction surveys) have found

“victim-focused” as is frequently set forth in more idealistic accounts of RJ

or program level. In this regard, we see problems of institutionalization as far

less vexing than those of definition, particularly where research suggests that

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outcomes. This does not mean that such problems are easily solved; institutional

change is notoriously difficult. Rather we mean only that research over

the past two decades in particular has set forth a fairly clear agenda on how

RJ conferences and outcomes can be more readily improved for victims and

offenders within institutional frameworks.

Finally, problems of displacement and relevance are two sides of the same

coin. Given RJ’s growth in the “shallow end” of criminal justice, often for lesser

offenses or youth offenders, its role as a viable crime control policy is limited

for the reason that most less-serious youth or first-time offenders tend not to

reoffend, regardless of the intervention used. This does not negate the importance

of RJ for victims in such cases. However, it does raise the question of

why RJ is frequently assumed to be more effective or appropriate for such

cases. There is some research that suggests RJ may in fact work well with

for such cases in Germany and other European countries (Dünkel,

the significant amount of criminological literature that has consistently found

a smaller number of more serious persistent offenders being responsible for

a majority of serious offending, it is not clear why there has not been more

systematic research into the ability of RJ to potentially reduce such offending.

p. 48) noted that, “banishing RJC to low-seriousness crimes is a wasted opportunity.

If governments wish to fund RJ at all, this evidence suggests that the

best return on investment will be with violent crimes, and also with offenders

convicted after long prior histories of convictions.” If this is true (although their

review limits the number of studies they consider according to several criteria),

the relevance of RJ toward addressing and reducing more serious reoffending

RJ’s continued relevance in the 21st century also demands that its practices

and theory begin to take seriously problems of social marginalization

as they structure criminal justice processes and in turn impact restorative

processes. The problem of race (including ethnicity and indigenousness) is

paramount, but this intersects in wicked ways with problems of gender and

social class. What such redress might look like is beyond the scope of this

paper (although it certainly demands significant attention). However, many

of the early arguments made by RJ supporters and advocates were predicated

on the design of a more just and more effective system of justice—for victims,

for offenders, and for communities—and on the premise that the state itself

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was in significant ways complicit if not outright responsible for barriers to

these goals. Over more than three decades, RJ practices have afforded victims

(however imperfectly) more participation, more redress, and more agency than

what existed prior—and offenders more opportunity to make amends in meaningful

ways. At the same time, this has come with an eschewal of focus on

structural drivers of marginalization in favor of a focus on individual harms

and redress, where crime is set forth in conferences or meetings not as a social

relation but merely as a violation of the social contact that must be redressed.

Yet the first 15 years of the 21st century has seen an explosion of anger

and angst around the historical reconfiguration of criminal justice practices as

It is thus not surprising that many new social movements are focused on the

problem of criminal justice as a primary means of social segregation and social

marginalization. Yet RJ research and programs are lagging behind these movements,

particularly in the investigation of where restorative practices may in

fact be useful in addressing these problems—or alternatively where they may

contributing to them. One setting where RJ has made inroads is in its growing

use in schools as a potential redress for the school-to-prison pipeline (particularly

where such programs replace zero-tolerance policies that criminalize

analysis of the impacts of these programs. There are also examples of RJ

programs aimed more directly at the needs of offenders and victims within

minority communities, for example the Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth

program, which has as one of its core goals the reduction of racial disparity in

the criminal and youth justice systems. These are promising avenues where

RJ has been able to conceptualize problems of state harm in ways that can be

are exceptions, and if RJ is to remain relevant in terms of its most core goals

of meaningful redress for victims, accountability and reintegration for offenders,

and community involvement and cohesion in justice practices, it must

begin to seriously grapple with the stratified realities of crime and criminal

justice—where offending and victimization are more than the sum and effects

of individual choices.

In several ways the problems we define and prescriptions we offer are contradictory.

We note the problem of the plasticity of the concept of RJ on the one hand, for example, but we argue that to remain relevant in the 21st century RJ must develop new ways of addressing problems of race, gender, and social class within its own practices. At the same time, as we make clear, the wide diversity of what is called “restorative justice” today is in many ways disparate, if not contradictory. The primary aim of our paper is not to try to reconcile these disparities, or set a new agenda for RJ. We assume that what is called “restorative justice” will continue to expand, and with it the disparities and even contradictions of theories and practices.

Following this, most of our identification of problems and discussion of prescriptions have at their core the implicit assumption that “restorative justice” is in fact distinct from other “innovative” practices that do not involve meetings between victims, offenders, and other vested parties. We do not say this in any attempt to provide a yet better definition of RJ, but on the contrary as a recognition that if RJ is to have any conceptual clarity or difference, then there must be some demarcation between what is and what is not “restorative justice.”

As such, our prediction is this. RJ has a future. We do not know what

that is, however. It might be one where the term and its corresponding practices

pancake into so many practices and meanings that as RJ continues to

“grow,” it becomes ever-thinner in its differences between “nonrestorative” programs,

practices, and theories of justice. This is not necessarily a negative to

the degree that RJ can function as an impetus for further innovative practices,

but it also very well may lead to the gradual dissolution of RJ into nothing

more than a meme for victim redress, offender reintegration, or community

set of practices involving face-to-face interactions between victims, offenders,

and other parties, it must contend with problems of its increasing institutionalization,

which we see as perhaps the most immediate means by which RJ

can “grow” in terms of better meeting goals of victim needs and redress and

offender accountability and reintegration.

The last problem, relevance, is the one that is the murkiest for us. As a

viable means of crime control, RJ needs to move beyond its displacement of

other informal or low-intervention justice practices for youth or less-serious

offenders into also addressing more serious offenses. For better or worse, RJ

has largely taken on the gambit of reducing recidivism as a means of legitimization

and relevance. This is in many ways a Faustian bargain insofar as

reoffending is related to variables and contexts outside the auspices or purview

of RJ practices. Nevertheless, with this gambit RJ must now more convincingly

demonstrate this effectiveness or risk being dismissed by policy makers

as another failed attempt at crime reduction.

In terms of relevance, RJ must also contend with and be able to speak

meaningfully in practice and theory to problems of bifurcated justice, particularly

along racial, ethnic, and indigenous lines. In terms of criminal justice

reform, the gross inequalities that currently exist will almost certainly continue

to dominate public discourse and policy debates in the near future, not

only in the United States but also Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the

United Kingdom. We do not know what role, if any, RJ will have in confronting

or addressing these problems. We do suggest, however, that its viability and

relevance as an “alternative” justice practice predicated on the recognition and

restoration of “harms” will lessen if it continues to ignore the social stratification

of justice in a reflexive sense—in its own practices, in ways in can

possibly confront these problems, and in ways in which it may be unwittingly

reproducing these social relations.

NOTES

1. We limit our discussion to Anglophone countries for two reasons. Primarily, countries

such as Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the

United States have adversarial systems of justice, as opposed to many other European

countries that do not. RJ thus tends to be used as a postadjudicative practice in

these countries, whereas in counties that use inquisitorial systems (i.e., Germany,

Sweden, etc.) RJ may more frequently be used prior to or as part of court processes

those where RJ has had the longest and most comprehensive development and

implementation.

example of debates between purists and maximalists.

RestorativeEngagementProgram.aspx

4. For other research on the question of how the institutionalization of RJ may

the RJ program in Tasmania, Australia, although there was a significant increase in

detention orders.

at the efficacy of RJ programs for young Latino offenders as well as the role that ethnicity

and other structural factors may have in reintegrative processes for young offenders

in RJ programs.

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7. There is some debate among RJ scholars and practitioners as to whether reducing

8. Here we do wish to note that certain categories of offending such as sexual violence

and domestic violence present significant and unique problems for RJ in terms of the

dynamics of meetings between victims and offenders.

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