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Rethinking Accusation: Comparing Two Formative Restorative Justice Promises

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Comparative Restorative Justice

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Abstract

The first chapter of this volume returns to two early promises of the restorative justice movement that have fallen by the wayside in current socio-cultural and political environments. First, a formative promise was to divert neighbourhood social harm from state-based criminal justice institutions to pursue conflict resolution within communities—sometimes with overtures toward decolonizing concepts. Secondly, the early promise of a paradigm shift in justice thinking was to recast dispute resolution techniques beyond narrow ideas of crime, individual culpability, and punishment. Restorative justice was to distinguish itself from individually centred crime control by focusing on transforming social relations that resulted in conflict. Rekindling such promises in light of restorative critiques of criminal justice and engaging with the pivotal role that accusatory practices play in sustaining criminalization, the discussion examines what these promises might mean for legally plural contexts. Through a comparison of promise, practical effect, and future revitalization, it argues that restorative justice should embrace new forms of accusation to divert individuals facing criminal accusations, and to transform intersectional social relations that produce harm.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Records for this case were consulted at the Provincial Archives of Alberta: ‘R v. John Sunday (Break and Enter)’, 1888. GR1983.0001 Box 1/4.

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    George Pavlich

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  1. Restorative Justice for All (RJ4All) International Institute, London, UK

    Theo Gavrielides

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Pavlich, G. (2021). Rethinking Accusation: Comparing Two Formative Restorative Justice Promises. In: Gavrielides, T. (eds) Comparative Restorative Justice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74874-6_2

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