Restorative Justice: Healing the Foundations of Our Everyday Lives

This bold, uncompromising essay offers a dual challenge to anyone interested in issues of justice. First, it poses a radical critique of current criminal justice practices in favor of a restorative justice alternative. Then, it advocates a fundamental reformulation of the thinking and practices of restorative justice itself.

Restorative justice is a growing movement that strives to achieve reconciliation between crime victims and the persons who have harmed them through the use of various forms of mediation and nonviolent conflict resolution. Many programs embodying this approach have been launched in North America, Europe and Australasia. The authors call for two sweeping revisions in restorative justice thinking: (1)replacing justice practices based on rights and "deserts" with approaches that seek to meet the needs of all -- including the harm-doer and the community, as well as those directly affected by a harm; and (2) applying these principles beyond the justice system to a broad range of social institutions, including families, schools, workplaces and neighborhoods.

The book offers many concrete examples of the type of need-based restorative justice that is being proposed.