Restorative Justice has emerged around the world as a potent challenge to traditional models of criminal justice, and restorative programmes, policies and legislative reforms are being implemented in many western nations. However, the underlying aims, values and limits of this new paradigm remain somewhat uncertain and those advocating Restorative Justice have rarely engaged in systematic debate with those defending more traditional conceptions of criminal justice. This volume, containing contributions from scholars of international renown, provides an analytic exploration of Restorative Justice and its potential advantages and disadvantages. Chapters of the book examine the aims and limiting principles that should govern Restorative Justice, its appropriate scope of application, its social and legal contexts, its practice and impact in a number of jurisdictions and its relation to more traditional criminal-justice conceptions.

These questions are addressed by twenty distinguished criminologists and legal scholars in papers which make up this volume. These contributions will help clarify the aims that Restorative Justice might reasonably hope to achieve, the limits that should apply in pursuing these aims, and how restorative strategies might comport with, or replace, other penal strategies.

Contributors: Andrew Ashworth, Anthony E. Bottoms, John Braithwaite, Kathleen Daly, James Dignan, R. A. Duff, Carolyn Hoyle, Barbara Hudson, Leena Kurki, Allison Morris, Kent Roach, Julian V. Roberts, Paul Roberts, Mara Schiff, Joanna Shapland, Clifford Shearing, Daniel van Ness, Andrew von Hirsch, Lode Walgrave, Richard Young