Over the last twenty years, research on desistance from crime and on restorative justice has grown rapidly and both have emerged as exciting, vibrant, and dynamic areas of contemporary criminological interest. While the implementation of restorative justice practices in Europe has been essentially victim-oriented, there has always also been an emphasis on including the moral and social rehabilitation of the offender. This more offender-centred approach to restorative justice and its practices is not limited to the evaluation of its ability to reduce crime, but is to be seen within the connection between reparation, resettlement (reintegration into the community after sentence), and desistance from crime. This article examines, from a broad perspective, but including some data from research on victim-offender mediation in prison, the capacity of restorative justice interventions to impact positively on offenders’ likelihood of stopping committing criminal offences.

This article presents some of the results of a study in which 25 adult men were interviewed who took part in restorative mediation in the French speaking part of Belgium and were desisting from crime. Their narratives were used to find out whether participation in restorative justice influenced positively their journey towards desistance; if so, which factors in restorative mediation supported this change process and how these factors had been helpful. The results suggest that restorative mediation has the potential to contribute to desistance in a humble, but significant way. Core aspects of mediation supported mostly already started desistance processes and they were helpful in a mainly cognitive way. The authors propose to further investigate the specific and helpful ‘presence’ of mediators and to reflect upon the apparent absence in restorative mediation of practical follow-up support towards desistance.

In this contribution, the justification of restorative practices in prison is first discussed from a normative perspective. On the basis of Lippke’s retributive theory of imprisonment it is argued that modern, humane retributive sanctioning entails an obligation to provide prisoners with opportunities to engage in restorative practices. Second, restorative practices in prison are examined from the perspective of possible impacts on the empowerment of prisoners and their experience to move away from crime and do good. Finally, it is argued that in order to yield positive effects, restorative practices in prison need to be supported by a safe and healthy living environment.

The Dutch Custodial Institutions Agency (DJI) strives for a more restorative prison culture in the Netherlands, incorporating a more victim-oriented and restorative way of working in prisons. To this end, DJI has asked for a plan and process evaluation of three restorative courses among (juvenile and adult) prisoners in the Netherlands: Puinruimen, SOS and DAPPER. This article first offers an overview of the most important findings of this evaluation which was finalized in 2016. Based on the findings of the plan evaluation, a cautious yet clearly positive picture emerges of the design and substantiation of each of the three courses examined. That is, an extensive description and substantiation exists of each course. In addition, evidence exists in the (limited) scientific literature for one of the goals that each of these courses have formulated: to increase prisoners’ awareness of the consequences of crime for victims. The literature also suggests that creating trust among participants and a safe group process during the course is helpful in attaining the goals formulated. The process evaluation of the execution of the three courses in practice further strengthens the cautious, yet positive picture painted by the plan evaluation. An examination of the experiences of the courses’ participants lends further support to the observation that these courses can attain part of their goals. For example, after the course participants were more positive about the added value of victim-offender mediation for them personally than before.
Aside from these findings, this article also argues for a deeper consideration of the constructive roles that both emotions guilt and shame can play in the restorative process of prisoners during these courses. The article ends with a number of recommendations for restorative courses in prison and a sketch of the current state of affairs in the Netherlands regarding these courses.

Restorative justice has evolved from an unknown concept towards a model that is considered world-wide when it comes to changes in the penal and youth justice sector. The restorative model expands towards handling conflicts in other areas, such as neighbourhoods, business, welfare issues, family matters and behavioural problems in schools. This article deals with the latter. Restorative practices are based upon an open and respectful dialogue, which presupposes certain attitudes and capacities. The article looks into possible risks, but especially the chances restorative practices in schools can offer for socially vulnerable youth.

This article describes the context of this thematic issue on restorative practices in schools. In 2016, KU Leuven performed an explorative research named “Field Glasses”. The research dealt with similarities and differences between restorative justice in the penal context on the one hand, and the domains of community building, adult education and schools on the other hand (Deboeck e.a., 2017). Literature has been studied and actors of both practice and policy-making have been interviewed. This article describes some of the main findings with regard to restorative practices and schools.

In the field of restorative justice (RJ), relatively much is known about victims’ reasons for wanting to participate in either mediation (as part of the criminal process) or victim-offender contact (parallel to the criminal process). Much less is known, however, about why victims refuse to take part in RJ services. The current article sheds light on this issue and is based on a joint exploratory research initiative by Victim in Focus and Victim Support the Netherlands. The results indicate that participation in mediation and victim-offender contact is significantly associated with the type of offense. Victims of traffic accidents participate significantly less often in mediation than victims of other offenses. In case of victim-offender contact, victims of violent crimes participate significantly less often while victims of traffic accidents participate more often than victims of other crimes. In addition, the referrer of the case and the victim’s age are also significantly associated with participation in victim-offender contact. When a case was referred through the judicial stakeholders, victims more often did not participate, whereas when victims registered themselves, it more often led to a form of victim-offender contact. With regard to age, victims younger than 25 were significantly less often willing to participate than older victims. The specific reasons victims mention for not wanting to participate in RJ are twofold: both emotional and pragmatic reasons are mentioned. The latter were most common with regard to both mediation and victim-offender contact: victims primarily wonder ‘what’s in it for me?’ and seem to base their decision on whether to partake in RJ on its answer. Mentioning emotional reasons not to participate was in case of victim-offender contact significantly associated with judicial referrers of the case, while such reasons were less mentioned when a case was referred through victim support in The Netherlands. To further explore these associations, more research is needed.

This article describes some victim-related research results of both an action research into the Flemish practice of conferencing, as well as the results of a European comparative research on victim-offender mediation. Through these results, we examine what victims think of restorative justice and why they choose (not) to participate. This way, we aim to fill a certain gap in restorative justice literature especially when it comes to non-participating victims (Van Camp & Wemmers, 2016), a group which remains hard to interview.