What is restorative justice?

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Restorative Practices is an umbrella term to refer to the various applications of the indigenous-inspired ways of addressing social issues.  Some restorative practices include: community group conferencing, family group conferencing, community accountability circles, harmed-harmdoer dialogues, peacemaking circles, restorative circles, circles of accountability and support, etc

Restorative justice is "consonant with African and other Indigenous communitarian values, restorative justice (RJ) is profoundly relational and emphasizes bringing together everyone affected by wrongdoing to address needs and responsibilities and to heal the harm to relationships and community, to the degree possible. While often mistakenly considered only a reactive response to harm, restorative justice is also a proactive relational strategy to create a culture of connectivity where all members of a community thrive."

Restorative justice sees "crime" as broken lives and justice as healing...Parties enter into the justice process, together focused on accountability and the common central question: how do we heal and transform relationships and structures in the wake of harm? To the degree possible, restorative justice seeks a healing for all versus a victory for one. 

This process usually occurs through a three-fold collaborative and dialogical process: (1) storytelling and relationship building, (2) truth-telling and accountability, and (3) reparative action. Even when both parties do not meet face-to-face, the restorative justice process seeks to achieve these three elements. 

Restorative justice seeks to elevate the voice of survivors, families, communities, and responsible parties in ways that rarely occur in the adversarial context and, in doing so, aspires toward greater community self-governance by bringing together all members impacted by wrongdoing to identify harm, assess needs, meet responsibilities, and heal and repair harm to the degree possible.

Ultimately, restorative justice signifies the dawning of a new justice, a Bright sun, that transcends the punitive and narrow assumptions of prevailing justice and offers a broader view of justice inspired by Indigenous values. That is, a new but old justice that is healing, relational, community-based, inclusivist, participatory, needs-and accountability-based, and forward looking"

Fania E. Davis, Race and Restorative Justice