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The purpose of this position paper is to assess the contribution of restorative justice to the desistance paradigm with a particular focus upon the psychology of these approaches.

Risk, need and responsivity approaches to offender intervention are discussed and compared with the desistance paradigm. An integrative approach of the two methods is proposed and the value of desistance approaches is highlighted in understanding processes of change and how restorative justice approaches can best contribute.

Discussion of desistance theory and the consideration of primary, secondary and tertiary desistance stages leads to the exploration of interplays in social and the human capital and the contribution of restorative justice to the desistance process. A desistance process that belongs to the desister is proposed to be supported by restorative justice processes.

Conceptualising the interplay of human and social capital within primary, secondary and tertiary desistance is suggested improve the responsivity of restorative processes, promote desistance, reduce recidivism and better support children’s rights. It provides justification to extend restorative approaches to 18-24-year-old young adults and to different settings. Restorative justice evaluation should consider the process of restorative justice and its outcome measurement could better consider desistance stages.

The position paper outlines the unique contribution that restorative justice approaches can make in supporting desistance. It outlines a relevant conceptualisation of desistance to advance knowledge through an improved understanding of process to improve responsivity of restorative approaches and of evaluation practice.

This paper aims to explore how peer support can support a combined Child First, trauma-informed and restorative approach for youth justice. While other scholars have identified clashes between these approaches, particularly between Child First and restorative approaches, a focus on reparative practice with peers has been under-explored as a more child-centred model for reparation-focused work.

We draw on qualitative data from interviews and surveys undertaken with young people and parents/caregivers in a London youth offending service (YOS). The data was part of a broader mixed-methods study in the YOS that used observational methods alongside surveys and interviews to evaluate the effectiveness of its model of practice. Peer support emerged as a theme.

Participants expressed the desire to see young people working and volunteering in the YOS and felt this would help make it a safe and non-threatening space. Young people who had completed their time with the YOS saw themselves as role models with the insight and skills to support others. These young people expressed a strong desire to work in the YOS and, in some cases, to develop long-term careers supporting young people.

Our research challenges the notion that young people who have been involved in crime struggle to empathise, providing rich examples of their empathic understanding for peers. Peer support opportunities could offer a reconceptualisation of restorative practice that is Child First and trauma-informed. Such opportunities would benefit both the young people being supported and those offering support, building a co-produced approach that is directly informed by the expressed needs and desires of the young people.

This paper will introduce a whole‐school approach to regulating safe school communities, based on principles of restorative justice. The idea is to move beyond regulatory formalism to a stance of response regulation, whereby the needs of the school community can be better met. The approach will incorporate a continuum of practices across three levels of regulation. The primary level of intervention targets all students, with an aim to develop students’ social and emotional competencies, particularly in the area of conflict resolution. This first stage aims to enable students to resolve their differences in caring and respectful ways. The secondary level of practices involves a larger number of participants in the resolution of the conflict or concern, as the problem has become protracted or has involved (and affected) a larger number of people. The tertiary level of intervention involves the participation of an even wider cross‐section of the school community, including parents, guardians, social workers, and others who have been affected. This intervention is typically used for serious incidents within the school, such as acts of serious violence. At each level, the processes involved are based on principles of restorative justice, such as inclusive and respectful dialogue. The aim is to build safe school communities through being more responsive and more restorative.

Purpose – To develop a new model of restorative reparation that attempts to capture the dynamic role of shared identity perceptions.

Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on recent advances in restorative justice theory (Wenzel, Okimoto, Feather, & Platow, 2008), we explore the theoretical proposition that a greater understanding of the identity relations between victims, offenders, and the groups in which they are embedded is key to understanding a victim's underlying motives toward justice, and thus, predicting when victims will react favorably to restorative justice processes and prefer them over traditional retributive justice interventions.

Findings – We argue that a perceived shared identity between the victim and the offender determines the extent to which the victim understands the transgression as requiring a revalidation of the rules, values, or morals undermined by the offense. Moreover, we propose that these identity relations are dynamic in that they both affect and are affected by the experience of injustice. Thus, identity is also shaped by the transgression itself through, inter alia, processes associated with positive social identity maintenance. Importantly, these shifts in identity determine how injustice victims are likely to respond to constructive approaches to conflict resolution such as restorative justice.

Originality/value – We offer a series of testable hypotheses aimed at engendering future research in the domain of constructive justice restoration in groups. Moreover, this work suggests that to develop effective resolution strategies, we must consider how an injustice event shapes the relations between the affected parties over time rather than simply assuming identity relations are static.

This paper reviews some recent criminal justice legislation and policy in England and Wales and considers whether the changes introduced genuinely implement new, restorative approaches or whether attempts have been made to use the rhetoric of restorative justice for other purposes.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of supervisor’s unfair treatment on follower’s retributive and restorative justice perceptions. The main goal is to find asymmetric nonlinear trajectories in the relationship between the severity of unfair treatment and employees’ orientation toward retributive/restorative justice.

Using an experimental policy-capturing design that varied five levels of transgression severity (none to very high) within supervisor–subordinate relationship injustice situations, 168 employees rated their retributive/restorative justice preferences. Latent growth curve modeling was used to fit the overall patterns of change.

As hypothesized, the trajectory of restorative justice was convex and progressed in a negative exponential shape, whereas the retributive justice trajectory was concave but followed a less steep positive exponential shape.

The main limitation is a threat to the external validity of the results. Scenario-based surveys may not fully generalize to actual organizational situations.

These findings help managers to understand how unjust treatment can shape employees’ expectations and, thus, address it adequately. This is important to retain qualified personnel and to minimize workplace disengagement in the aftermath of poor treatment.

Restorative justice is of great importance for minor and moderate violations of justice.

By illustrating different trajectories, this study extends research on restorative and retributive justice in organizations. The results help to understand when people expect restoration and are motivated to punish wrongdoers.

Restorative practice programs in the USA and Western elementary and secondary schools have been the focus of intensive, large scale field research that reports positive impacts on school climate, pro-social student behavior and aggressive behavior. This paper aims to contribute to a gap in the research by reporting a case study of transformation of an urban middle school in a multi-year implementation of restorative practices.

This paper reports how Creative Response to Conflict (CRC) supported the transformation of Middle School 217, in Queens, NY, from a school with one of the highest suspension rates in New York City to a model restorative school. CRC’s model, which incorporates the themes of cooperation, communication, affirmation, conflict resolution, mediation, problem-solving, bias awareness, bullying prevention and intervention, social-emotional learning and restorative practices, helped shift the perspective and practice of the entire school community from punitive to restorative.

Implementation of a full school advisory program using restorative circles for all meetings and classes and development of a 100% respect program committing all school community members to dignified and respectful treatment aided the transformation. Key to MS 217’s success was the collaboration of multiple non-profit organizations for provision of peer mediation training, after-school follow-up work, staff coaching and preventative cyberbullying training through the Social Media-tors! Program.

Challenges to the restorative practices implementation are reviewed with attention to the implementation online during COVID-19.

Next steps in the program post-COVID are articulated as a best practice model for other schools interested in adopting MS 217’s commitment, creativity and community-building to become a model restorative school.

In response to an increasingly high level of exclusion rates for boys within secondary school in the UK, this study seeks to explore the value of restorative practice and justice for changing student behaviour.

As a piece of action research, the authors aimed to look at how methods of restorative practice could work with one student in a secondary school, following a whole school's move towards a personal responsibility charter. The focus of this research remained on the individual male subject, rather than the educational institution. It is based upon a process of reflecting upon key events that happened throughout the study. This research will use qualitative data gained from observing the student at school, as well as interview and written feedback from the subject himself and school staff. The paper is designed to offer real and informative insight into the value of restorative justice and practices.

Restorative practices had little overall impact on improving the subject's behaviour in school. He was able to have a mature discussion with an adult about the behaviour he was demonstrating. Nevertheless, when put back in the classroom situation he was unable to make a conscious decision to alter his negative behaviour. However, his skills in conferencing to resolve conflict were developed through the authors' involvement with him, as well as other school staff, and he was able to understand the school's new charter.

This paper contributes to restorative justice and practice literature and is insightful because of the action research approach taken.

This chapter examines how the aspirations of the restorative justice movement are broader than tends to be acknowledged in debates about the virtues and vices of restorative justice. It suggests that, along with trying to change the social response to crime, the movement is concerned to bring about transformations in the way conflict is handled in a range of institutions, in approaches to political reconciliation, in social organisation and in our understanding of the self. Also, along with introducing new procedures for handling social problems, the movement is concerned to bring about profound changes in the way problems are construed.

The primary goal of the Restorative Justice process is not punishment but making good the harm done by offending for the victim, the community and the offender. Offenders have to take responsibility for their actions as a precondition to addressing the harm that they have caused. Offenders become aware that a crime is committed, not against an abstraction, but against someone real, a person like themselves and against their community, who are directly and indirectly affected by what has happened. Crime and conflict affect relationships between individuals who are left outside the court system altogether by conventional justice. Proceedings and arguments of the restorative process are voluntary for all parties. People are given the opportunity to partake in mediation, or to accept reparation. The process is always confidential however; outcomes and agreements can be made public, depending on the authorisation by participants.