Restorative Justice Braithwaite, J. (2002).

Restorative Justice

Braithwaite, J. (2002). Restorative Justice & Responsive Regulation. Oxford University Press.

Restorative justice, the Braithwaite text indicates, has been advocated for centuries in a variety of different forms. However, the text makes the argument that the approach demanded by restorative justice conflicts with the practical implications of court annexed justice by reducing legal contextualization to an impractical degree. The Braithwaite text contributes the most significant counterargument to the advocacy of restorative justice otherwise found in this account.

Braithwaite argues that "contrary to legal common sense, restorative justice seeks to reduce the cost of justice by expanding the issues beyond those that are legally relevant, especially into underlying relationships. Court-annexed ADR and restorative justice could not be philosophically further apart on this question." (Braithwaite, 249) This reflects one perspective on the issue, though Braithwaite's legal review research method would effectively consider all angles on the subject through the citation precedent.

Hopkins, B. (2004). Just Schools: A Whole School Approach to Restorative Justice. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

The text by Hopkins provides one of the more compelling discussions on the subject of restorative justice. If it is not always the case that such methods may be used to mend legal trespasses due to prevailing political or legal culture, the context of a school proves extremely practical for evaluating the benefits of this approach. The Hopkins text considers restorative justice as a way to mend relationships in the school context, arguing that this is a more constructive way of approach problem students.

Hopkins denotes that restorative justice as an applicable part of the legal system requires a paradigm shift and, further, contributes to the subject of restorative justice by suggesting "that a similar paradigm shift is needed in a school setting if relationship and behaviour management are to be developed along restorative lines." (Hopkins, 30) the research conducted is field research, producing grounded handbook drawn from firsthand professional experience.

Liebmann, M. (2007). Restorative Justice: How it Works. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

The Liebmann text is effectively the introductory and comprehensive overview source for the present discussion. Providing a sweeping look at the subject in the legal context, as well as applying it thereafter to the workplace, schools and community reconciliation, Liebmann contributes a view of restorative justice which suggests its progressive properties. The research method would be a literature review gathering together a wide array of case studies to the endorsement of restorative justice. Most of these contribute to the perspective that restorative justice has the capacity to improve criminal reform and to fulfill a sense of justice for the victim.

Ruth-Heffelbauer, D. (2006). Restorative Justice FAQ. Victim Offender Mediation Association. Online at http://www.voma.org/rjfaq.shtml

The source composed for the Victim Offender Mediation Association is a fact sheet and statement of purpose for the organization, detailing its efforts to bring about a greater acceptance of this methodology in mainstream legal contexts. Based in the United States, VOMA assembles legal experts and criminal justice advocates who view the benefits of restorative justice as tantamount to better preventing criminal recidivism and promoting a sense of redemption for the victim.

A contribution to the field is VOMA's service as a forum for restorative justice processes. The FAQ here provided would indicate that "Victim Offender Mediation is usually a face-to-face meeting, in the presence of a trained mediator, between the victim of a crime and the person who committed that crime. The practice is also called victim-offender dialogue, victim-offender conferencing, victim-offender reconciliation, or restorative justice dialogue. In some practices, the victim and the offender are joined by family and community members." (Ruth-Heffelbauer, 1) the research used to form this FAQ appears largely to be anecdotal and drawn from the internal records and documentations of the organization.