Restorative justice in prisons

Abstract

Restorative justice (RJ) has found significant utility outside the prison setting. For many reasons, it has not received the same level of consideration inside the institution. While not every case can, or perhaps should be considered for restorative justice processing inside the prison, some could easily fall into the broad purview range of restorative and transformative justice. We provide examples of RJ practices that exist in some prisons focusing on: offending behavior and victim awareness programs, community service work, and victimoffender mediation, as well as prison systems that exhibit a RJ philosophy. Also considered are the effectiveness of prison RJ practices, and the limitations of such efforts. Although RJ has the potential to have a positive impact on the work of prisons and the experience of imprisonment, it has not found wide acceptance and is currently limited to a relatively small number of prisons and then often only delivered in partial form. We believe that RJ has a realistic future in prison settings and that the contradictions that may be identified are not debilitating.

Rethinking Prison Disciplinary Processes: A Potential Future for Restorative Justice

“…However, once embedded in such institutions, there would likely be impacts outside of the prison as well. For instance, our vision here clearly differs from that of most versions of restorative justice in prison (see e.g., Dhami et al 2009) in that we are not advocating for opportunities for prisoners to make amends to the victims of their crimes on the outside through restitution or engage in victim impact work (Sedelmaier & Gaboury, 2015), as valuable as such work may be. However, such efforts may be more possible in an environment where prisoners are already socialized into restorative means for problem resolution.…”

“…Edgar & Newell, 2006;Johnstone, 2014;Van Ness, 2007;Stamatakis & Vandeviver, 2013). Yet, despite these developments, Dhami, Mantle and Fox (2009) argue that RJ has had little impact on prison policy, is frequently used in an ad-hoc, piecemeal fashion, is dependent on the presence of professionals who have bought into the benefits of RJ and is margainalised within prison administration. In addition, while some prisons have experimented with using a RJ approach to resolve conflicts within prison (e.g.…”

Changing on the Inside: Restorative Justice in Prisons: A Literature Review

“…This is perhaps unsurprising given the "tough on crime" attitude that appears to have a stranglehold on the public and political discourse surrounding crime and punishment, with restorative justice sometimes caricatured as a "soft" option and deemed not punishment enough (Dhamia, Mantle & Fox, 2009;Gromet & Darley, 2006). The debate until recently has certainly been dominated by those on the side of retributive justice, those who posit that justice is only done when the offender pays, or is seen to suffer.…”

“…This is an important question as, however much advocates of restorative justice might hope for a time when retribution is no longer the primary driving force of the criminal justice process, this is unlikely to be realised soon. As imprisonment looks set to remain the principal response to adult crime for a while yet, restorative practices will need to be used in tandem with more punitive methods, at least for the foreseeable future (Dhamia et al, 2009). So returning to whether the dichotomy between restorative and retributive justice is a false one, perhaps it is helpful to avoid confusion between particular conceptions of punishment with the concept of punishment itself.…”

“…It is now generally accepted that there is a role beyond simply incarcerating, and that prisons should have a rehabilitative function in which those locked up are offered opportunities to reform and to tackle the root causes of their behaviour in order to successfully reintegrate into society upon release (Dhamia et al, 2009). This is essential given that the vast majority of prisoners, once released, often rejoin the very communities from which they came, and they are expected to not cause further harm to those communities (Sherman & Strang, 2007).…”