About the Book
Restoring Justice: An Introduction to Restorative Justice offers a clear and convincing explanation of restorative justice, a movement within criminal justice with growing worldwide influence. It explores the broad appeal of this new vision and offers a brief history of its development. The book presents a theoretical foundation for the principles and values of restorative justice and develops its four cornerpost ideas of encounter, amends, inclusion and reintegration. After exploring how restorative justice ideas and values may be integrated into policy and practice, it presents a series of key issues commonly raised about restorative justice, summarizing various perspectives on each.
Table of Contents:
Foreword Part One: The Concept of Restorative Justice Chapter 1: Visions and Patterns: How Patterns of Thinking Can Obstruct Justice Chapter 2: A Brief History of Restorative Justice: The Development of a New Pattern of Thinking Chapter 3: Restorative Justice: Justice That Promotes Healing Part Two: The Cornerposts of Restorative Justice Chapter 4: Inclusion Chapter 5: Encounter Chapter 6: Amends Chapter 7: Reintegration Part Three: The Challenge of Restorative Justice Chapter 8: Making Restorative Justice Happen Chapter 9: Toward a Restorative System Chapter 10: Transformation Appendix 1: RJ City SM Case Study: When Ed and David Broke into Mildred’s House and Took Things Select Bibliography Name and Subject Index
About the Author :
Daniel Van Ness is Vice President of Programmes at Prison Fellowship International, an association of national NGOs in more than 125 countries that assist prisoners, ex-prisoners, victims, and their families. For 30 years, he has explored and promoted restorative justice as public policy advocate, program designer, writer, and teacher. He is the author and editor of a number of publications on restorative justice and has presented nearly 30 papers at national and international conferences on themes related to restorative and community justice. Since 2000, he has taught a biennial Intensive Course on Restorative Justice at Pepperdine University Law School’s Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution. The National Association of Community and Restorative Justice honored Van Ness with the John W. Byrd Pioneer Award for Community and Restorative Justice in 2013.
Karen Heetderks Strong is a consultant on criminal justice reform and conflict resolution. She spent the majority of her career in an American non-profit organization serving prisoners, ex-prisoners, victims, and their families and supporting advocacy for reforms in the state and federal criminal justice systems. In addition to her work in helping envision and articulate restorative justice, Strong guided program development in such areas as mentoring for youth at risk and a re-entry model for Michigan prisoners returning to Detroit. She also evaluated and helped shape the pilot of a faith-based victim assistance program model. As a senior leader, she guided a number of organizational efforts aimed to increase the effectiveness of volunteers in serving those affected by crime and prison. Strong earned a Ph.D. and an M.Phil. from Drew University, a graduate Diploma from the University of Oxford, and a B.A. from Seattle Pacific University.
Review :
Comments on Previous Editions of Restoring Justice "As a crime victim, victim advocate, and long-time supporter of restorative justice values and principals, I found Restoring Justice to be an excellent resource for anyone interested in the complex world of restorative justice history, processes, and ideas. Bravo to Dan Van Ness and Karen Strong for offering a balanced approach to restorative justice that understands "real" justice is about repairing the harm and healing those who have been harmed by crime: victims, offenders, and communities. Restoring Justice is a well-written and quite often inspirational book!" - Ellen Halbert, Director, Victim/Witness Division, Travis County District Attorney's Office, Austin, Texas; Editor, the Crime Victims Report , a national newsletter "At each edition of Restoring Justice , Daniel Van Ness and Karen Heetderks Strong set the standard and make their volume one of the basic books-or perhaps the basic book-on restorative justice. Their book reflects the richness of the restorative justice approach, through process analyses with clinical relevance, theoretical thinking with social ethical and social significance, principled exploration on juridical options, and a broad sociological context analysis. Van Ness and Heetderks Strong colour this broad interdisciplinary picture with their own visions and options. In doing so, they deliver a crucial contribution to understanding restorative justice principles and their proper implementation. Restoring Justice is the result of intensive commitment to the values of restorative justice, balanced with a constructive critical mind for possible problematic implementations, and openness for unanswered questions and unresolved difficulties. It is a landmark in the restorative justice literature." - Lode Walgrave, Professor Emeritus, Catholic University of Leuven "In Restoring Justice , Dan Van Ness and Karen Strong] challenge researchers and scholars to move beyond measuring only recidivism as the ultimate outcome of evaluation, and victim and offender satisfaction as the primary intermediate measures. Based on this work, we may now instead build upon core principles to develop dimensions and measures of process integrity, as well as theoretical dimensions to assess intermediate outcomes for victim, offender and community." - Gordon Bazemore, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida Atlantic University "Restoring Justice is the best, most thorough text on the most important development in the justice system in the last decade: restorative justice... a seminal work... this book does a wonderful job of describing the rationale, presenting the arguments, confronting the criticisms... provides a measured, reliable statement on our need to restore justice." - Todd Clear, Professor of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice "... a great introductory overview of restorative justice ... easily understood while also providing significant depth... draws together the significant insights in the field while making several new contributions...invites and encourages change without alienating people who are currently working in the field. I recommend Restoring Justice for both the novice and the seasoned restorative justice reader." - Ron Claassen, Director, Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies, Fresno Pacific University "... an exceptionally good job of clearly articulating the underlying principles and values of restorative justice, including many practical examples. This book will serve as a primary resource for scholars and practitioners involved in the restorative justice movement as it continues to expand." - Mark Umbreit, author of Victim Meets Offender, Professor, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota
