Restorative justice in Brazil: does it provide a place for community involvement and a path to penal abolition?

Abstract

This article addresses the major criticisms of Brazilian restorative practices, which mainly focus on the offender and are shaped by the idea of punitivism. In this scenario, it is crucial to understand the centrality of Judicial Power in the implementation of restorative justice. That this approach risks refreshing old practices of criminal justice, under the cover of innovative discourses, is widely ignored. Such consequences have become reality, with recent research highlighting the absence of the victim, the individualization of the conflict and the lack of debate on the context of structural injustices prior to the conflict. We argue that the exclusion of the community and limited involvement by civil society might be the biggest obstacles for the inclusion of restorative justice in the development of a Brazilian transformative justice towards an abolitionist future.