Imagining Success for a Restorative Approach to Justice: Implications for Measurement and Evaluation

Abstract

Whether restorative justice is “successful,” or not, is a complex question. Attempts to answer this question by practitioners, professionals, and scholars have often been bounded by common notions of success in standard criminal justice terms. The authors of this paper suggest that if restorative justice is properly understood in terms of its focus on relationship, success should be measured on new and different dimensions. This paper seeks to bring a relational imagination to the scholarly effort of capturing the essence of restorative justice and figuring out how to assess its successes and failures. The authors offer a foundation and agenda for future research and development of a relational approach to assessment.

Keywords: Restorative Justice, Canada, Criminal Law