Restorative Justice: An Alternative for Responding to Crime?

References ...................................................................................................... 678 All over the world, restorative justice is steadily gaining credibility as a powerful alternative in the response to crime. According to van Ness and Heetderks Strong, the phrase “restorative justice” was launched by Eglash in 1977 (van Ness and Heetderks Strong 2002). Some ideas and practices then circulated among a few practitioners and academics, who, for many, seemed to ground their vision on nostalgic and utopian visions and on a few experiments of anecdotical significance only. Much has changed since then. Restorative justice now has become a broad and still “widening river” (Zehr 2002) of renovating practices and empirical evaluation; a central issue in theoretical, juridical, and social ethical debates; and a ubiquitous theme in juvenile justice and criminal justice reforms worldwide.