Restorative justice in prisons

Abstract

Restorative justice (RJ) has found significant utility outside the prison setting. For many reasons, it has not received the same level of consideration inside the institution. While not every case can, or perhaps should be considered for restorative justice processing inside the prison, some could easily fall into the broad purview range of restorative and transformative justice. We provide examples of RJ practices that exist in some prisons focusing on: offending behavior and victim awareness programs, community service work, and victim‐offender mediation, as well as prison systems that exhibit a RJ philosophy. Also considered are the effectiveness of prison RJ practices, and the limitations of such efforts. Although RJ has the potential to have a positive impact on the work of prisons and the experience of imprisonment, it has not found wide acceptance and is currently limited to a relatively small number of prisons and then often only delivered in partial form. We believe that RJ has a realistic future in prison settings and that the contradictions that may be identified are not debilitating.

Keywords:

• restorative justice
• imprisonment
• victim‐offender mediation
• community service
• alternatives to violence

Notes

1. Typically, RJ practiced outside the prison environment involves victims, offenders, and communities in the form of family‐group conferences, or sentencing (or peacemaking) circles.

2. However, studies do not always involve randomized controlled trials. One reason why RJ programs perform relatively well is because they often deal with less serious offenses and first‐time offenders. In fact, there are some critical accounts of the success of RJ (for example, Braithwaite, 1998; Daly, 2002).

3. Related services include victim/offender groups where prisoners meet victims of crime generally rather than their own victims (see Liebmann & Braithwaite, 1999).

4. Related services include victim enquiry work which provides victims with information about a prisoner’s release (see Liebmann & Braithwaite, 1999).

5. Surrogate victims here refer to people who have been victims of crimes, but not those committed by the offenders they are interacting with.