Assumptions of linear progress and a clean break with the past have long characterised transitional justice interventions. This notion of temporality has increasingly been problematised in transitional justice scholarship and practice. Scholars have argued that a more complex understanding of temporalities is needed that better accommodates the temporal messiness and complexity of transitions, including their ongoingness, multilayeredness and multidirectionality. Existing critiques, however, have not yet resulted in a new conceptual framework for thinking about transitional temporalities. This article builds on insights from the field of restorative justice to develop such a framework. This framework foregrounds longer timelines, multilayered temporalities and temporal ecologies to better reflect reality on the ground and victims’ lived experiences. We argue that restorative justice is a useful starting point to develop such a temporal framework because of its actor-oriented, flexible and interactive nature and proximity to the field of transitional justice. Throughout this article we use the case of Chile to illustrate some of the complex temporal dynamics of transition and to illustrate what a more context-sensitive temporal lens could mean for such cases of unfinished transition.

In Canada, restorative justice programmes have long been institutionalised in the criminal justice system. In Ontario, specifically, their use in criminal prosecutions is subject to the approval of Crown attorneys (prosecutors) who are motivated in part by risk logics and risk management. Such reliance on state support has been criticised for the ways in which it might subvert the goals of restorative justice. However, neither the functioning of these programmes nor those who refer cases to them have been subject to much empirical study in Canada. Thus, this study asks whether Crown attorneys’ concerns for risk and its management impact their decision to refer cases to restorative justice programmes and with what consequences. Through in-depth interviews with prosecutors in Ontario, I demonstrate how they predicate the use of restorative justice on its ability to reduce the risk of recidivism to the detriment of victims’ needs. The findings suggest that restorative justice becomes a tool for risk management when prosecutors are responsible for case referrals. They also suggest that Crown attorneys bear some responsibility for the dangers of institutionalisation. This work thus contributes to a greater understanding of the functioning of institutionalised restorative justice in Canada.

Indigenous people may suffer harm when the environment, sacred places and sacred objects are destroyed or damaged. Restorative justice conferencing, a facilitated face-to-face dialogue involving victims, offenders, and pertinent stakeholders has the potential to repair that harm. This article explores the use of conferencing in this context with case law examples from New Zealand and New South Wales, Australia. As will be discussed, the lack of legislative support for conferencing in the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales means it is doubtful that such conferencing will develop past its current embryonic state. As well as using restorative justice conferencing to repair harm from past criminality, this article suggests that further research should explore the use of restorative justice to resolve present conflict, and prevent future conflict, where there is a disconnect between non-Indigenous use of the environment and Indigenous culture embedded in the environment.

The worldwide existing environmental conflicts have also given rise to worldwide environmental justice movements. Using a diversity of tools that range from petitions to legal actions, what such movements have often shown is that environmental conflicts rarely find a satisfactory resolution through criminal judicial avenues. Given this reality, the important question then is whether there is a place within environmental justice movements for a restorative justice approach, which would lead to the reparation or restoration of the environment and involve the offenders, the victims and other interested parties in the conflict transformation process. Based on the analysis of environmental conflicts collected by the Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilities and Trade project (EJOLT), and more specifically on two emblematic environmental conflict cases in Nigeria and in Ecuador, the argument will be made that it is essentially due to the characteristics of environmental conflicts, and due to the fact that they almost never find a satisfactory resolution through traditional judicial avenues, that environmental justice movements ask for a restorative approach, and that restorative justice is a sine qua non condition to truly repair environmental injustices, as long as the worldview and nature of the victims is taken into consideration.

Campus sexual harm is a widespread problem that demands approaches that focus on prevention, alongside those that respond to specific incidents of harm. This article presents the outcomes of a proactive initiative – a sustained restorative dialogue – that uses restorative circle practice in the university setting to better understand the issue of sexual harm, and identify practical steps that focus on its reduction. Speech data from post hoc interviews with participants of the dialogue is analysed in order to demonstrate the outcomes of the process, and highlight the value of using a dialogic model to address the issue on campus. Findings suggest that the process has very real potential for enhancing understanding and awareness and increasing communication on the topic, these being important precursors to transforming the cultural norms and campus climates that foster sexual harm.

As a response to the over-representation of Australian Aboriginal offenders in Western Australian prisons and high rates of reoffending, this article presents a sketch of Western and Australian Aboriginal worldviews and core symbols as a basis for understanding the rehabilitative-restorative needs of this prisoner cohort. The work first reviews and argues that the Western-informed Risk-Need-Responsivity model of programming for Australian Aboriginal prisoners has limited value for preventing reoffending. An introduction and description are then given to an Aboriginal in-prison restorative justice process (AIPRJP) which is delivered in a regional Western Australian prison. The process is largely undergirded by an Australian Aboriginal worldview and directed to delivering a culturally constructive and corrective intervention. The AIPRJP uses a range of symbolic forms (i.e. ritual, myth, play, art, information), which are adapted to the prison context to bring about the aims of restorative justice. The article contends that culturally informed restorative justice processes can produce intermediate outcomes that can directly or indirectly be associated with reductions in reoffending.

The years 2018-2020 saw a number of new international legal instruments and guidelines relating to restorative justice. In 2018, a landmark Recommendation adopted by the Council of Europe and a Resolution by the Organization of American States encouraged its use in their regions. In 2019, the Milquet Report proposed amending a European Union Directive to promote restorative justice as a diversion from court, while in 2020, the European Union adopted a new Victims’ Strategy, and the United Nations published a revised Handbook on Restorative Justice Programmes. This article identifies and analyses the principal developments in this new international framework. It demonstrates the growing consensus on the potential applicability of restorative justice for all types of offences, and the emerging recognition that restorative justice should aim to satisfy the needs of all participants. It also explores statements endorsing the use of restorative justice beyond the criminal procedure and advising criminal justice institutions to utilise restorative principles to inform cultural change. The paper concludes that implementing international policies domestically requires justice reform advocates to build strong, trusting relationships, and organise inclusive partnerships, with all those who hold a stake in the development of restorative justice.

Restorative justice services have expanded in England and Wales since the Victim’s Code 2015. Yet evidence from the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that in 2016-2017 only 4.1 per cent of victims recall being offered such a service. This article presents the evidence from an action research project set in three police forces in England and Wales, which sought to develop the delivery of restorative justice interventions with victims of adult and youth crime. We depict the complexity intrinsic to making an offer of restorative justice and the difficulties forces experienced in practice, given the cultural, practical and administrative challenges encountered during the course of three distinct pilot projects. Points of good practice, such as institutional buy-in, uncomplicated referral processes and adopting a victim-focused mindset are highlighted. Finally, we draw the results from the different projects together to suggest a seven-point set of requirements that need to be in place for the offer of restorative practice to become an effective and familiar process in policing.

This study aimed to explore current attitudes regarding the amenability of a restorative justice approach to addressing harms caused by sexual offences. A web-based survey of a university student sample included a specific narrative response question assessing empathetic responses to stepfather-teen sexual abuse scenarios. Many (78 per cent) participants endorsed a restorative justice approach, a substantial minority (19 per cent) of whom endorsed restorative justice while stipulating retributive justice conditions. Only 22 per cent completely rejected a restorative justice approach. The overarching theme was the dichotomous opinion of restorative justice as either a sufficient (e.g. best option, rehabilitative value) or insufficient (e.g. not enough punishment) response to addressing sexual offences. There was an overall self-reflective openness and willingness to consider a restorative justice approach to address sexual offences.

An argument for the importance of strategically selected terminology in the practice of restorative justice in sexual violence cases is presented through reviews of restorative justice, communication, social constructivist and feminist literature. The significance of language and its impact on those who use it and hear it is established from its use in classical antiquity, psychotherapy and semantics. The use of the terms ‘victim’ and ‘survivor’ is explored in the fields of legal definitions and feminist theory. Reports in the existing restorative justice literature are used to bring together the literature on the impact of the use of terminology and the legal and feminist understandings of the significance of the use of the terms ‘victim’ and ‘survivor’. We argue that the restorative justice practitioner has a crucial role in guiding the person harmed in sexual violence cases in the strategic use of ‘victim’ and ‘survivor’ to enhance the positive impact of terminology on the persons harmed in acts of sexual violence. Conclusions from our explorations support the creation of a proposed sexual violence restorative justice situational map for use as a navigational aid in restorative justice practice in sexual violence cases.