Source: (2008) Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law. 16(1):1-86.
True restorative justice in response to crime has characteristics of deliberative
democracy that have the potential to make a modest, if not significant, contribution to human capital development and
community capacity building. The story of these hopeful developments is the subject of this article but, just as the devil
is often said to be in the details, close analysis of detail can be the source of things divine in the best of all possible
worlds. The reader is, therefore, forewarned that there follows a highly condensed discussion of the relations among
models of criminal justice, regulatory theory, deliberative democracy and human/social capital investment. But the
ultimate message is simple: we have the social, economic, political, and indeed legal means to liberate people’s creative
and productive capacities in multiple ways and in curious places; hence, the reference in the title to the traditional black
spiritual “Let My People Go.” (excerpt)
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