Law in Context

Abstract from Volume 17 No 1 (2000) Criminal Justice in Diverse Communities

Restorative Justice in Diverse and Unequal Societies

Kathleen Daly

Daly addresses the role that restorative justice might play in societies where inequality is structured around race or ethnicity. The literature that has emerged around restorative justice often claims that restorative justice delivers more effective justice, partly because it offers community members and organisations a far wider role than conventional retributive forms of justice. Daly argues that restorative justice may have the potential to do so if properly resourced and linked to offences that are susceptible to imprisonment. However, she also warns that in extending and developing programs of this kind, we should be careful not to assume equality of outcomes from equality of treatment, and advocates a form of restorative justice directed to relations of group inequality as well as individual criminality.

(1999) 17(1) Law in Context 166
Keywords: Restorative Justice; Racial inequality; Ethnic inequality

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