Restorative justice as a contested response to conflict and the challenge of the transitional context : an introduction

Restorative justice is a popular concept. Its use within neoliberal settings is capacious and has been applied to initiatives that seek to increase the role of victims and/or the community in responding to crime; to processes that deal with conflicts and complaints in schools and the workplace; and to outcomes that seek to 'restore' or 'repair' harm that has been caused. The promise that practitioners make about the power of restorative justice - that victims will have a sense of closure, that the underlying causes of offending will be addressed, that offenders will be held to account and that (implicitly) crime will be decreased - means that policymakers and governments have been clamouring to integrate such approaches within expensive institutional responses to crime.