Recent years have witnessed an entrenchment of restorative justice principles and practices in the youth and adult criminal justice systems of the UK. This research presents a comparative analysis of the findings of two empirical studies-one of a police restorative cautioning scheme conducted fifteen years ago, and the second a contemporary study of youth offender panels. In this research, we argue that restorative justice practices in the UK are repeating history, rather than learning from it. Specifically, we argue that if restorative justice programmes continue to proliferate with the same shortcomings-most notably, inadequate victim involvement, failure to provide a genuine role for the community, and targeting only relatively low-level crime-the future for restorative justice in the UK is likely to be bleak.
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