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Handbook of Social Justice Theory and Research pp 257–272Cite as

Restorative Justice

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Abstract

“Restorative justice” describes a range of practices designed to address the harm caused by wrongdoing. The practices involve victims, offenders, and the broader community in conversation in order to address the antecedents and consequences of the harmful act(s). Such practices are fundamentally triadic and are clearly visible at both group and community (meso) and state (macro) levels of analysis. This chapter focuses on the role of fundamental psychological and social psychological factors that affect restorative practices at the meso (small group and community), and macro (state) levels of analysis. Work on those fundamental processes will be employed to interpret the role of three essential characteristics of the practice: narrative, memory, and ritual.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    That is, frequently, informally, and without much conscious effort. I will argue later that restorative practice is better understood as a ritual.

  2. 2.

    Lovett, Jordan, and Wiltermuth (2012) have recently validated a “Moralization of Everyday Life” scale designed to assess moral judgments of everyday behaviors.

  3. 3.

    Restorative processes at this level resemble “plea bargains.” An offender admits a violation in exchange for escaping any more than the minimal penalty of acknowledging error.

  4. 4.

    Bruneau and Saxe (2012) have recently documented the importance of the experience of “being heard.”

  5. 5.

    Weisberg (2003) provides a critique of the way “community” has been conceptualized in restorative justice, and Dignan et al. (2007) offer one of the role of “restorative facilitator.” Haldemann (2008) employs a similar conceptual scheme, though he does so in constructing a philosophical argument for the centrality of recognition in transitional justice, “the process by which societies confront legacies of widespread or systematic human rights abuses as they move from repression or civil war to a more just, democratic, or peaceful order.” (p. 675) “Transitional justice” will be discussed directly in Sect. 14.4 below.

  6. 6.

    The role of narrative has also been examined in work on “retributive justice,” frequently with respect to the strategies employed by lawyers for the state and defendant, and the effects different narratives might have on jurors’ decisions (see, for example, Griffin, 2013; Haney, 2009; Rose, Diamond, & Baker, 2010).

  7. 7.

    Literature on bystander intervention addresses factors that facilitate or inhibit such intervention.

  8. 8.

    Differences among such truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) and between these and other macro-level forms to address many related practices will not be addressed here. I will employ the term “transitional justice.”

  9. 9.

    As suggested above, both parties to a conflict are likely to cast themselves as victim, and the other as offender. These castings can often reframe the conflict so that each party emphasizes the harms it has suffered, and attributes that harm to the other (e.g., Shnabel and Ullrich, (2013); Shnabel, Halabi, & Noor, 2013).

  10. 10.

    Work on collective memory is large and multifaceted. Only a small sample of that work is referred here (Brants & Klep, 2013; Hewer & Roberts, 2012; Hirst & Echterhoff, 2012).

  11. 11.

    Celermajer (2013) offers a thoughtful critique of attempts to distinguish “mere rituals of apology” from “sincere” ones, particularly for apologies in transitional justice. See also Fischer et al. (2013) for an evolutionary account of collective rituals, and Summers-Effler (2010) for an application of ritual theory to social movements.

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  1. Bennington College, Bennington, VT, USA

    Ronald L. Cohen

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  1. Ronald L. Cohen
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  1. University of Haifa Faculty of Education, Haifa, Israel

    Clara Sabbagh

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Landau, Germany

    Manfred Schmitt

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Cohen, R.L. (2016). Restorative Justice. In: Sabbagh, C., Schmitt, M. (eds) Handbook of Social Justice Theory and Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3216-0_14

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