ABSTRACT
A few years ago, a restorative justice practitioner said to me: “When restorative justice works, it works really well; but don’t expect it to always work” (Gavrielides, 2007). How can we, when one of the fundamental principles of restorative justice is voluntariness (Gavrielides, 2020)? We also have to ask how power and empowerment are manifested in restorative justice. As argued in this book, restorative justice is not another form of punishment that can be imposed on parties. It is not an alternative to punishment either. It is a wilful process of catharsis for everyone involved.
