Justice Reinvestment as Social Justice

Abstract

This chapter draws on the work of the Australian Justice Reinvestment Project (AJRP) (Brown et al., 2015). The AJRP examined the development of justice reinvestment particularly in the context of it’s alignment with broad social justice values. We are also specifically interested in how and whether justice reinvestment can meet the needs of those social groups that have been adversely affected by mass imprisonment and hyper-incarceration, particularly racial and Indigenous minorities, women and people with mental health issues and cognitive impairment (Cunneen et al., 2013). We argue that justice reinvestment was in its early development strongly tied to civil rights, particularly with the focus on imprisonment and racialization, and social justice for communities where large numbers of residents were recycled in and out of prison.

Keywords: social justice, justice reinvestment, minority groups