Source: (2008) Community Development Journal. 43(4):470-482.
Restorative justice as popularly conceived is intertwined with ‘community’.
Building trust within ‘communities’, restoring damaged social
and interpersonal relations, widening the ways in which conflict and
violence are understood and responded to are all elements of
restorative justice. There are parallels here with the activities of
community-development workers working in conflicted neighbourhood
level communities. Might some of the practices within a typical
restorative justice initiative be useful to community development? We
highlight the potential benefits of dialogical processes and structured
‘healing’ relationships that are inherent in restorative justice work.
We argue that some longstanding understandings within community
development could usefully extend the ways in which restorative justice
is typically enacted. (author’s abstract)
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