Restorative Justice As Social Justice for Victims of Gendered Violence: A Standpoint Feminist Perspective (Report)

Because of an increasing awareness of inadequacies in the criminal justice system in meeting the needs of victims of crime, there is a growing movement to use alternative, more informal forms of instituting justice for victims, offenders, and communities (see, for example, Belknap, 2007; Bui, 2007; Chesney-Lind, 2002; van Wormer & Roberts, 2009). The strategies, known collectively as restorative justice, involve a conferencing process guided by a trained facilitator. The purpose of the restorative form of justice is reconciliation rather than punishment, healing rather than retribution. To date, restorative processes have been used primarily to deal with cases of property crime and juvenile offenders. "No one foresaw," as researchers Umbreit, Vos, Coates, and Brown (2003) informed us, "that such processes might be appropriate in cases of severe violence such as felony assaults, vehicular homicide or murder" (p. 13). Restorative justice is rarely explored from a perspective that is attentive to gendered crime, such as domestic violence (Stubbs, 2007). Some experts in the field have ruled out the suitability of restorative techniques in cases of domestic violence because of power imbalances in the relationship and the fact that the relationship between offender and victim is often ongoing (see Busch, 2002; Strang & Braithwake, 2002; Stubbs, 2007). Others have advocated for restorative strategies for the same reason--because the relationships are ongoing (Grauwiler & Mills, 2004; Presser & Gaarder, 2004).