Situating and Researching Restorative Justice in Great Britain

Source: (2004) Punishment and Society. 6(1): 23-46.

This article reviews the primary claims made for restorative justice as a response to offending. It summarizes Home Office research published in 2001 which evaluated seven restorative justice schemes operating in England during the 1990s. The narrative sets the recent resurgence of interest in the potential of restorative justice within Great Britain in a wider context of successive state responses to victimization. The article highlights recent national and European initiatives and links the findings of the Home Office research to evaluations of other schemes in England and Scotland. It addresses basic questions concerning the proper measure for the evaluation of the success or otherwise of restorative justice schemes, and draws attention to the recommendations
of the Review of the Criminal Justice System, that there should be a national strategy for the implementation of restorative justice initiatives. (author’s abstract).