Restorative Justice: A Family Violence Perspective

Paula Martin

Recently there has been an upsurge in interest in the concept of “restorative justice”, which has been proffered as an alternative to our current criminal justice system. The Ministry of Justice has called for public submissions on a discussion document. While there is a proliferation of literature on the topic, relatively little has been written specifically in relation to family violence.

This paper describes some of the characteristics of family violence, which differs from other types of criminal offending because of the relationship between the victim and the offender, which is often associated with a power imbalance. The question addressed is whether models of restorative justice developed to deal with cases where victim and offender are unknown to each other can adequately cover cases of family violence, where this is not true.

The paper focuses on the potentially inappropriate applications of restorative justice models, given that the primary consideration must be to ensure the safety of victims.

It concludes that the complexity of the problem means that an adequate response must include intervention and prevention, must provide safety, support and advocacy, and must give a clear message to abusers that violence will not be tolerated, while providing opportunities to change.