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Conditions of Successful Reintegration Ceremonies

Braithwaite, John
June 4, 2015

Source: (1994) British Journal Of Criminology 34(2):139-171. Reprinted in Restorative Justice. Declan Roche (2003), ed. Pp. 3-35. The International Library of Essays in Law & Legal Theory, Second Series. Aldershot, Hants, England: Dartmouth/Ashgate.

Shifting criminal justice practices away from stigmatization and toward reintegration is no small challenge. The innovation of community conferences in New Zealand and Australia has 2 structural features that are conducive to reintegrative shaming: (1) selection of the people who respect and care most about the offender as conference participants (conductive to reintegration); and (2) confrontation with victims (conducive to shaming). Observation of some failures and successes of these conferences in reintegrating both offenders and victims is used to hypothesize 14 conditions of successful reintegration ceremonies. Data were obtained primarily from fieldwork.

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