Como integrar as práticas restaurativas ao currículo escolar

Restorative Justice: Some Facts and History

Controversies Around Restorative Justice

Restorative justice has been available in certain parts of the Republic of Ireland, and at some stages of the criminal justice process, for over two decades. Additionally, in recent years, many public- and third-sector practitioners working with offenders and victims have received training in restorative practices. However, there has never been a study mapping the use of restorative justice and practices across the country. This article analyses and contextualises the main findings from recent research that investigated the extent to which restorative justice and practices are used in Irish criminal justice. It outlines new data collected from agencies that seldom permit academic access to data, nor publish figures on these elements of their work. The findings suggest that restorative justice is used with several offence types, albeit mostly in relation to victimless offences (or otherwise in the absence of a direct victim), while accessibility remains low overall. At the same time, the growth in restorative practices training creates an opportunity to align occupational cultures with restorative principles. This study lays the groundwork for policies aiming to make restorative justice more accessible and embed a restorative culture in Irish criminal justice professions and agencies.

Background: In recent years, the use of restorative justice (RJ) and restorative practices (RP) in schools has grown rapidly. Understanding how theory and research address this topic is important for its practical implementation based on scientific knowledge. The aim of this article was to analyse the practices derived from RJ implemented in school and what kinds of results have been achieved. Starting from the analysis of the qualitative and quantitative research in the field, a systematic review was conducted on the last decade of studies using RJ and RP at every level of school education. Methods: For this review, methods including the PRISMA guidelines, the PRISMA flow diagram, and qualitative synthesis were carried out. Scientific articles for the literature review were selected according to the following criteria: (1) publication date between the years 2010–2021; (2) student population aged 6–18 years; (3) publications in the English language; (4) articles directly accessible or accessible by contacting the author(s); 34 articles met the inclusion criteria. Results: The most used RP in school are circles (n = 26), followed by restorative conferences (n = 17), peer mediation (n = 10), restorative conversations (n = 8), mediation (n = 7), community-building circles (n = 5). RP can improve the school climate, discipline, positive conflict management through actions that aim at preventing suspensions, exclusions, conflicts, and misbehaviours (e.g., bullying). RJ practices promote positive relationships between peers and between students and teachers, as well as to prosocial behaviours through the development of social and emotional skills. Conclusions: From the studies examined, a great interest in applying restorative justice and practices in schools clearly emerged. Discussions on the benefits and challenges of implementation were provided. However, there is still limited evidence in terms of direct correlation, which suggests further studies on the impact of RJ and RP in school settings.

This chapter discusses the restorative justice principles and practices in African schools. Restorative justice practices in schools, which are based on relationships and not rules, are indigenous to the African communities' ways of conflict resolution and reconciliation. Restorative practices in schools cast a wider net than restorative justice in the courts. The main pillar of the foundation of restorative practices in schools is the teacher. The foundations of restorative practices in schools will be successful in schools that have these types of teachers. Restorative practices are built on the positive relationships that teachers foster with students and with each other in schools. Formal restorative practices are meant for restoring damaged relationships. Formal restorative practices see justice as getting well rather than getting even. The “adults as defective children” perspective argues that children are not merely unfinished adults but are likely to possess abilities that adults are likely to have largely lost.

Restorative Justice (RJ) is a philosophy of human interaction which operates on the principle that people are connected through relationships, and that building, maintaining, and restoring those relationships will foster healthy communities. Common elements of a restorative philosophy include community building through strengthening relationships and conflict resolution through communication and taking responsibility for harm caused. A circle process is commonly associated with restorative community building and repairing harm. While the origin of RJ is cited in various indigenous cultures (Fronius et al., 2019; Tauri, 2018), modern applications derived from the 1970s as an alternative or supplement to traditional forms of criminal justice (Zehr, 2014), and have been adopted in over 100 countries (Van Ness, 2005). In contrast to traditional forms of criminal justice, RJ focuses on repairing relationships rather than punishment of offenders (McCluskey, 2018; Zehr, 2014). This process typically involves bringing together multiple parties affected by harm including the responsible party or person(s) causing the harm, the victim or person(s) harmed, and any bystanders or community members affected by the harm (O’Connell, Wachtel, & Wachtel, 1999). The RJ philosophy applies to education by prioritising school climate and community over top-down control (Vaandering, 2010), addressing school discipline by involving students in repairing harm and reintegration (Fronius et al., 2019), and promoting equity (Evans & Vaandering, 2016; Davis, Lyubansky, & Schiff, 2015). RJ is becoming more common in schools as a means to reduce disproportionate exclusionary discipline rates and harsh, ineffective zero-tolerance discipline policies (Fronius et al., 2019). Its increasing use is driven by the accumulating evidence that exclusionary punishment in education, including suspensions and expulsions, is associated with negative student outcomes, such as increased likelihood of dropout and involvement in the juvenile justice system (e.g., Fabelo et al., 2011). Schools are also adopting RJ as a means to reduce the racial and gender disparities in exclusionary discipline (United States Department of Education, 2014; Gregory & Fergus, 2017). In this article, we introduce RJ in education through a brief summary of the history of RJ, elements of RJ in education, RJ and social emotional learning (SEL), and RJ as a tool for equity. RJ in the context of education is also referred to as restorative practices, restorative justice practices, or restorative discipline. Some practitioners and scholars emphasise ‘practices’ given community- and relationship-building goes beyond responses to discipline infractions (Wachtel, 2016). Other practitioners and scholars emphasise ‘justice’ given the desire to emphasise fairness and equality in light of historical harms experienced by marginalised groups (Evans & Vaandering, 2016). Still other scholars distinguish the terms as restorative ‘justice’ referring to the philosophy, while restorative ‘practices’ are the tools or protocols used to implement restorative philosophy (Evans & Vaandering, 2016). While there is debate in the field as to preferred terminology, in this case we use RJ to refer to the restorative philosophy, particularly in education contexts.

Restorative justice is an innovative justice response to crime and offending that takes many forms such as victim-offender meetings, family group conferencing and youth justice conferencing, and sentencing or peacemaking circles. While restorative practices are used in a wide variety of contexts such as schools and workplaces to respond to and resolve conflict, restorative justice practices are predominantly used within criminal and youth justice. Key goals of restorative justice include (a) meeting victim needs of participation in justice processes and redress for harms caused to them, (b) asking wrongdoers to be accountable and actively responsible for making amends to victims and other they have harmed, and (c) involving primary and community stakeholders in restorative practices that repair harms to victims, promote offender reintegration, and enhance community safety and well-being. Existing research shows that restorative justice consistently meets most of these goals better than conventional court practices. However, restorative justice also appears to work better in some cases than in others, and also faces several limitations and challenges within its use in criminal justice systems. Limitations include dependence of restorative justice on state justice apparatuses for definitions of harm, and lack of fact-finding mechanisms that render most uses of restorative justice as diversionary or postadjudicative responses to offending. Challenges include lack of agreement on the aims and goals of restorative justice theoretically and in practice, administrative dilution and co-option of restorative aims and goals within increased institutionalization in criminal justice agencies, and uncertainty about the ability of restorative justice to redress harms situated within social-structural forms of violence and oppression such as gendered violence and systemic racism.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to consider what safeguarding responses to discriminatory abuse and hate crime might learn from existing research on restorative justice and to drive practice development based on available evidence.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on a scoping review of literature using four academic databases and reference harvesting. This comprised a critical appraisal of 30 articles, which were thematically analysed to appreciate the benefits and challenges of restorative justice responses to hate crime and how this might inform safeguarding responses to discriminatory abuse and hate crime.FindingsThe analysis identifies four domains where learning can be drawn. These relate to theory on restorative justice; restorative justice practices; perspectives from lived experience of restorative justice and hate crime; and an appraisal of critiques about restorative justice.Originality/valueThis paper connects the emerging evidence on restorative criminal justice responses to hate crime to the “turn” towards strengths-based practices in adult safeguarding. Although this provides a fertile environment for embedding restorative practices, the authors argue certain precautions are required based on evidence from existing research on hate crime and restorative justice.

Restorative juvenile justice

COMMUNITY-BASED AND RESTORATIVE-JUSTICE INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE OVER-POLICING

Restorative justice seeks to bring those that have created harm together with those that have been harmed, and often stands in contrast to retributive and punitive approaches to justice that centre the state in the responses to crime and harm. Restorative justice approaches are becoming increasingly integrated into parts of the criminal justice system, and this paper examines the evidence for such applications in the context of youth violence and policing. The evidence is built on work conducted for the Metropolitan Police Service, the UKs largest police force with over 30,000 officers serving 8 million people in and around London. It does this through a Rapid Evidence Assessment, which utilises the search and sifting principles of systematic reviews on a more limited basis, tailored to the needs of a specific audience, and conducted within a limited timescale. The results of the assessment are broken down into three areas: benefits, challenges, and deployment considerations. The studies identified through the assessment suggest that restorative justice and restorative practice can form an important part of an overall strategy to help reduce both incidents of youth violence as well as the longer-term impacts of that violence when it has taken place. We conclude that in the context of violence and young people, effective restorative justice police practice should embrace a whole-system approach that incorporates multi-agency working and consistently engages with young people at risk of becoming violent offenders or victims.

The handling of narcotics crimes in Indonesia remains a persistent legal and social challenge, especially in balancing punitive measures with rehabilitation efforts. This empirical legal research investigates the implementation of prosecution termination policies using a restorative justice approach in narcotics cases and analyzes their compatibility with the principles of Maqasid al-Shari‘ah. Field data were collected through in-depth interviews with 12 key informants, consisting of prosecutors, judges, police investigators, religious leaders, and former drug offenders who had undergone restorative justice proceedings. Additional data were obtained through direct observation of mediation sessions at the prosecutor’s office and the analysis of legal documents, including case files and institutional guidelines. The field findings reveal that the application of restorative justice is still limited and discretionary, often depending on the initiative of individual prosecutors and the willingness of victims or communities to engage in non-litigation settlement. While some prosecutors have successfully used this approach for first-time or non-distributor offenders, significant legal and structural constraints remain—such as the absence of detailed operational guidelines, lack of coordination between institutions, and limited public understanding of restorative mechanisms. Nevertheless, the study finds that the use of restorative justice aligns substantively with the goals of Maqasid al-Shari‘ah, particularly in protecting life (hifz al-nafs), intellect (hifz al-‘aql), and religion (hifz al-din), by prioritizing rehabilitation, mental health recovery, and spiritual reintegration over mere incarceration. Restorative practices, such as sulh (mediation) and community involvement, are also consistent with Islamic legal traditions emphasizing compassion, reconciliation, and prevention of greater harm (dar’ al-mafasid). The academic contribution of this study lies in offering a normative-empirical synthesis between Islamic legal principles and restorative justice practices, providing a conceptual and policy framework for the transformation of narcotics prosecution models in Indonesia. It emphasizes the importance of integrating maqāṣid-based reasoning into contemporary criminal justice reform to foster a more humane, rehabilitative, and socially responsive legal system.

Restorative practices can be traced back to the Maori communities in New Zealand and have their historical and cultural origins in those communities. Restorative practices were then applied in the criminal justice sector throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and a decade later in the education sector. The argued benefit of restorative practice in schools is that it can help to shift the focus from ‘zero-tolerance’ approaches to less punitive approaches, providing young people with the opportunity to learn and develop skills when conflict occurs. Current research in the UK tends to focus on the evaluation of restorative practices, with a focus on its effect on reducing exclusions and other sanctions. There is good evidence that restorative practices are successful in reducing exclusions and that it is a good alternative to the ‘zero-tolerance’ behaviour policies in mainstream schools. However, there is a distinct lack of research being carried out in specialist settings such as pupil referral units and alternative provisions. Additionally, much of the qualitative research has focussed more on the adult’s perceptions and does not give a lot of detail on young people’s experiences of restorative practices. I conducted my research in an alternative provision with six young people who had experienced at least one restorative meeting. I gathered the young people’s views through semi-structured interviews and analysed the transcripts using thematic analysis. Three major themes were identified, with several subthemes. Theme one highlighted that the young people had knowledge of restorative meetings, but that their understanding of the purpose of these meetings deviated from the underpinnings of restorative practices. Similarly, theme two showed that the young people were broadly critical of the process and spoke about areas such as equality, feelings of disempowerment and the application of restorative practice. Theme three demonstrated they had both positive and negative reflections on their previous education setting. These themes raise questions on how restorative practice is being used in this setting and how the young people have interpreted and responded to its use. The findings suggest that, at least in this setting, young people’s experience of restorative practice is not always being applied in a way that aligns with its underlying principles. The potential implications of this misalignment are discussed and suggestions for evidence-based practice are outlined.

Restorative values such as collaboration, community, and resiliency are not new, but they are new in their relationship to the criminal justice system. Within recent decades, restorative justice practices have grown in popularity as they provide a number of solution-focused strategies to address crime. Restorative practices also have the potential to positively transform reentry-specific processes. In Wilmington, North Carolina, Leading Into New Communities (LINC) is an organization that assists its residents in their return from prison, recognizing that restorative values are essential to a successful transition. However, while LINC is restorative in its overall mission, most staff members do not possess concrete understandings of restorative justice.
 In this study, in order to improve staff understandings of these topics, two voluntary training workshops were held to provide LINC staff members with more information on restorative justice, including its many programs and practices, as well as the unique ways in which it relates to reentry. Workshop observations and anonymous feedback forms provide insight into how these workshops benefitted LINC staff. This paper highlights the importance of restorative workshops in similar organizations as a way to improve understandings of restorative justice practices and how they can be utilized throughout reentry processes. With a broader understanding of restorative justice, organizations such as LINC will be in a better position to assist individuals with reentry in more meaningful ways.

Background: Restorative justice emerges as a theoretical-practical approach to the criminal legal system, in which the reparation of damage of the victim is a central point. However, the growing empirical production referring to the effects of this approach on victims is sometimes shown to be weakened or dispersed, focusing mainly on their satisfaction. Objective: The present work intended to systematically evaluate the empirical production of the restorative justice field, to aggregate and examine information in the literature regarding the psychological impacts on victims who participated in restorative practices. Methods: A search was made using electronic databases to identify quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method studies, published between January 2000 and December 2020 that reported psychological impacts on real victims of crimes, who participated in mediations/conferences victim–offender. Results: 35 studies were identified as focusing on the psychological impacts on victims resulting from restorative practices. These studies have shown effects on post-traumatic symptomatology, on the emotions and emotional needs resulted from victimization, as well as on the victims’ perceptions of their offenders. Conclusions: The present research showed that restorative justice practices have a positive psychological impact on victims, who are frequently forgotten in conventional justice, and that some of these impacts persist over time.