Restorative Justice ..

Find out more about Restorative Justice across the following areas:

Restorative Justice Works

  • Independent expert analysis finds RJ would benefit society by over £1billion read more.

  • RJC/Victim Support proposal for victims of serious crime would save £185 million read more.

  • RJC summary of Ministry Justice research into restorative justice read more.

Restorative Justice in Action

Ray and Vi Donovan met the young man who murdered their son Christopher. Hear their story.

Case Studies
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In Other Areas

Restorative practices can be used in many areas to resolve conflict and repair harm.

Restorative practice is an innovative and expanding field. Practitioners who learn the skills are using them in new and creative ways; and members of the public are asking for them in situations where harm has occured.

For example, restorative processes have been used to resolve complaints against the police, or in cases of medical negligence where what the patient really wants is an explanation, an apology and assurance that no one else need suffer. Restorative processes have been used to deal with regulatory breaches, for example in relation to Health and Safety or Environmental Protection where people want to avoid recourse to the law and resolve problems positively. 

In work with children and young people, restorative processes are constantly being used in new ways, for example, as part of adoption and fostering processes to enable people to communicate with one another when a placement is breaking down. The skills can be used to help families resolve conflict; and as part of parenting to give parents skills to diffuse conflict and build good proactive discpline.

Restorative circles are being used to work with gangs to allow gang members to understand hurt from the other perspective and make an agreement; in workplaces to create a 'whole organisational ethos' for how conflict should be dealt with (for example to resolve conflicts between staff members); and in communities, for example, circle processes bringing up to thirty or forty people together to talk about the issues harming their neighbourhood and how these can be resolved.

Across the world, processes like the Truth and Reconciliation Process in South Africa are based on restorative principles such as truth telling, forgiveness, and reconciliation, resolving this level of large scale, long-lasting harm between communities.

If you are using restorative practice in innovative ways we would love to hear from you.

See further reading (below) and our Resource section for more information.

10th Jan 2011 | Conflict, Regulation, Health | RJC

Further Reading about Restorative Justice