By Meredith Rossner and Helen Taylor

Restorative justice is an idea and a practice that has had a significant impact on criminology over the past four decades and has proliferated throughout the criminal justice system. Yet from the beginning of this movement, there have been worries that the mainstreaming of restorative justice will lead to its dilution, or even corruption, and undermine its transformative potential. Developing alongside the growing institutionalization of restorative justice has been a transformative justice movement that has arisen from larger movements for racial and gender justice, drawing on similar foundational values to restorative justice. This review interrogates the relationship between restorative and transformative justice by examining a flourishing of ideas and experiments at the margins of the restorative justice movement in three key areas—responses to racial injustice, sexual violence, and environmental harm—and finds that restorative justice has the capacity to work at multiple levels to respond to harm, transform relationships, and prevent future injustices.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 357 - 381

By Jackie O'Brien

As American society has reckoned with the harmful effects of mass incarceration, there has been a push to consider alternative forms of achieving justice. Restorative justice is one such method. A transformative approach to conflict resolution inspired by the traditions and practices of indigenous peoples, restorative justice offers a comprehensive means of addressing harm, emphasizing the community, rather than the single act that caused harm. Many jurisdictions and communities have turned to restorative justice to divert cases from the punitive criminal legal system. While there are variations in programs and approaches, many communities integrate restorative justice practices as a means of addressing harm caused by young people. Applying a restorative approach, these initiatives seek to undermine the harmful, life-long effects that interaction with the criminal legal system imposes upon young people.

These restorative alternatives operate against the backdrop of the punitive system, leading scholars, practitioners, and community members to raise concerns about the lack of procedural protections in place for individuals proceeding through these diversionary programs. Because the proceedings are less adversarial in nature, the legal community has sounded the alarm about the potential for self-incrimination, coercion, and less zealous advocacy by counsel. This unease is further compounded by the fact that failure to complete the requirements of these programs can lead to a referral back to the traditional criminal legal system.

The Restorative Justice Community Court of Chicago (RJCC) is one such alternative. Created in 2017, there are now three RJCCs operating in the North Lawndale, Englewood, and Avondale communities. This Comment seeks to analyze the due process concerns raised by members of the legal and restorative justice communities through the lens of the North Lawndale RJCC. Drawing on knowledge gained through my personal observations and interviews, it is clear that due process violations do not present a substantial threat to the success of the RJCC. Programs like the RJCC operate in a gray zone between the legal rigidity of the criminal legal system and the community-oriented approach adopted by the restorative justice community. This framework urges us to evaluate these programs through an alternative lens so that we can better understand their contributions to furthering justice while remaining aware of their shortcomings to create fully restorative spaces.

113 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 685 (2023).