Book Review: Repositioning Restorative Justice.

In the last twenty or so years, restorative justice has moved from a position of obscurity to widespread recognition in criminological and criminal justice contexts. As part of this growth, a great many conferences around the world – from small to large, from local to international – have been conducted to examine and explore restorative justice.

One series of conferences has been organized by an International Network for Research on Restorative Justice for Juveniles. The network consists of a number of prominent scholars and practitioners in restorative justice and juvenile justice from around the world. This book represents a second collection of papers stemming from the network’s fifth conference in this series, a conference held in Leuven, Belgium, September 16-19, 2001. (The first collection was published as Restorative Justice and the Law, 2002.)

With more than 200 participants from 26 countries, and more than 70 papers presented and discussed, one of the themes of the conference was “repositioning restorative justice.” This theme points to two aspects of the current state of restorative justice. One is satisfaction or confidence in the value and feasibility of restorative justice. The other is concern for misunderstandings and even misuses of restorative justice, whether with respect to critics or advocates. Hence, the chapters in this book, written by a variety of experts and based on papers from the conference, cover these broad but significant subjects:

• principles of restorative justice

• evaluation of restorative practices

• the scope of restorative approaches

• the application of restorative justice in different countries.

Chapter Summaries:

Introduction

Is it time to question the concept of punishment

Restorative justice: A discussion of punishment

Alternative conflict resolution and restorative justice: a discussion

A survey assessment research on mediation and conferencing

Evaluating the practice of restorative justice: the case of family group conferencing

Differences in how girls and boys respond to family group conferences: preliminary research results

Juvenile Offenders' perceptions of community service

Researching the prospects for restorative justice practice in schools: the 'Life at School Survey' 1996-99

Community mediation, criminal justice, and restorative justice: rearranging the institutions of law

Restorative justice for adult offenders: the New Zealand Experience

Restorative justice in prison

The possibilities for restorative justice in Serbia

Alternative practice for juvenile justice in Flanders (Belgium): the case for mediation

Preparing the South African community for implementing a new restorative child justice system

Positioning mediation in the criminal justice system: the Italian 'justice of the peace'

Anthropological reflections on restoring justice in Norway

Implementing family group conferences in Belgium

The future of the Japanese criminal justice system



October 2004