Accepted or Acceptable Justice? The Problem of Rational Control in Restorative Justice Practices

Source: (2008) Report of the fifth conference of the European Forum for Restorative Justice, Building restorative justice in Europe: cooperation between the public, policy makers, practitioners and researchers, Verona.

Focusing mostly on the program of victim-offender mediation, Reggio addresses the question of whether restorative justice can be considered a morally legitimate method of justice independent of whether or not it is effective at producing particular results. He considers the implications of consensus and dialogue in the results that are achieved and points out several potential pitfalls of restorative justice before affirming what he believes must be the ethical baseline of restorative justice: “It is not enough to reach accepted solutions, but acceptable ones!”