This article sketches some important tendencies in the attention for victims of crime, including in supranational regulation, with regard to the position of the offender and possibilities for restorative justice. The evaluation of victim policy in Belgium offers a view on this topic: victims have certain expectations towards the justice system and pose questions with regard to the offender. A third issue regards the place of restoration within the whole range of consequences of crime for victims: what is the meaning of ‘harm’ and what is the content of ‘restoration’ for victims? A last topic considers the openness of victim assistance programmes with regard to the offender dimension and possibilities of restorative justice. This article thus evaluates the possible link between victim assistance and restorative justice.

Seemingly a difficult concept, participation in restorative justice can be understood better once the notion is broadened and operationalized. Therefore a proposal will be made here to first broaden the meaning of participation beyond participation of stakeholders and ‘community’ in the process as it is generally understood in restorative justice literature, and second break down the concept of participation into five different levels: (1) involvement of the stakeholders and the ‘community’ in the restorative process; (2) participation of citizens as volunteer mediators/facilitators in the process; (3) self-referrals from citizens; (4) voluntary participation of experts in restorative justice organisations; (5) promotion from ex-victims of crime and ex-offenders. Based on this approach, in the end, the author opens up the discussion on the meaning of active citizenship for restorative justice in continental Europe. Before discussing how the broadening of the concept of participation is concretely envisioned, the author argues on the importance of prioritizing the notion of citizenship instead of ‘community’ in the continental European restorative justice discourse.

In this article, the authors summarize some important methodological problems that may be encountered when studying the crime preventative effects of restorative justice. Studies mostly focus on tertiary preventative effects, namely the reduction of recidivism. Empirical research is in that regard mainly dealing with the effects of victim-offender mediation and conferencing practices. Some problems include the definitional issue (what can be considered as a restorative justice intervention?), the (quasi-)experimental design, the small size of samples and issues of comparability between different studies due to differences in e.g. follow-period or criteria for measuring recidivism.

This article gives a complete and detailed overview of research evaluations and outcomes of restorative justice projects in the Netherlands over the past decades. It involves developments where clearly restorative justice inspiration was visible. The author describes restorative practices with juveniles and the so-called project ‘Herstelbemiddeling’ (restorative mediation) that started in the nineties. Most evaluations had positive outcomes, but nevertheless there was no continuation from the political side. The author also examines the introduction of the country wide ‘victim-offender conversations’ which are carried out by the national victim support organization. Although this choice is justified because of the vulnerability of some victims and the chance of revictimisation, the author questions if victim organizations can really - in the best interests of the victims – turn away from problems related to the (hardened) treatment of offenders. Victim-offender conversations are to be respected and to be continued, but they cannot be seen as a restorative justice practice.

In this article, the author evaluates whether the development of restorative justice in Belgium over the past ten years offers an opportunity to ‘celebrate’, as the Journal for Restorative Justice does. Developments in practice show that mediation is available at all stages of the judicial procedure for adult offenders and mediation and conferencing are available according to youth law. Research has been carried out on various topics, covering a variety of practices. Furthermore, it has elaborated the concept of restorative justice, inspired innovative practices and influenced policy-making. Belgium seems to be peculiar in the relation between practice, research and policy, which tend to influence one another. Compared to the Netherlands, Belgium does have more reasons to celebrate the development of restorative justice.