Source: (2001) In Restorative community justice: Repairing harm and transforming communities, ed. Gordon Bazemore and Mara Schiff, 333-347. With an introduction by Gordon Bazemore and Mara Schiff. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishing Co.
Schiff and Bazemore contend that restorative community justice is a viable model from which practice, policy, and influence are likely to continue to expand. In other words, there is a future for restorative community justice; the question is what that future will be. In this essay, Schiff and Bazemore creatively speculate about that future. They describe four possible versions of a scene on a college campus in North America about 75 years in the future. They call these scenes “justiceworlds.â€? In each scene or “justiceworld,â€? a student is doing research on something called “restorative community justiceâ€? from books current 75 years before the student’s time. Each student reacts in a distinctive, though puzzled, way to what he or she is reading. Justiceworld 1 is this: “Restorative community justice: The alternative to incarceration movement of the twenty-first century.â€? Justiceworld 2 is this: “Less than meets the eye: Restorative community justice as the new diversion.â€? Justiceworld 3 is this: “Parallel systems: Community restorative justice as more than meets the eye.â€? Justiceworld 4 is this: “Restorative community justice: The maximalist vision.â€? Through these imagined futures, the aim of Schiff and Bazemore is to urge restorative community justice proponents and activists to consider what needs to be done in theory and practice to realize the promise of restorative community justice.
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