Can restorative justice reduce battering? Some preliminary considerations

Source: (2000) Social Justice 27 (Spring): 175-195.

According to Presser and Gaarder, domestic violence is a seemingly intractable problem. Some argue that common legal strategies to help victims, such as mediation, actually make matters worse. While some feminists have virtually rejected mediation, restorative justice, which some have touted as a “feminist vision of justice,” has introduced new variations on mediation. In this seemingly contradictory context, the authors evaluate the potential of restorative justice programs to reduce domestic violence. Toward this end, they investigate contemporary responses to battering and compare them to the promises and problems of restorative justice interventions.