Source: (2003) Utah Law Review. 2003(1): 471-522.University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. Downloaded 13 October 2003.
Douglas Sylvester begins this article with remarks and illustrations concerning the use of history in the entertainment business and in the trial setting. Historians complain about what they perceive as the misuse of history in both arenas. Sylvester points out that restorative justice literature is open to the same critique, namely, that history is used and even distorted to some extent for purposes other than the recovery, reconstruction, and understanding of the past for present and future generations. While no historian has yet critiqued restorative justice advocates for their use of history, some within the movement have raised serious questions. Kathleen Daly, for example, has accused restorative justice scholars of employing historical arguments to create an “original myth.â€? Sylvester steps into all of this to argue that the critique of restorative justice scholars’ use of history has merit, but that with limitations history can be molded somewhat to serve modern ends.
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