Campus sexual assault (CSA) remains a persistent public health problem on U.S. college campuses. Changes in U.S. federal law have highlighted the need for responses to campus sexual assault (CSA) that meet the needs of persons harmed, increase meaningful accountability for persons responsible, and engage the whole campus in prevention efforts. These changes have simultaneously tightened standards of evidence in institutionalized campus adjudication methods and expanded resolution options to include processes such as restorative justice and transformative justice. The objective of this scoping review is to synthesize the available academic and grey literature about restorative justice and transformative justice responses to CSA up to September 2020. A total of 96 sources were reviewed, and 76 met the final inclusion criteria. For both restorative justice and transformative justice, there is a body of theory and praxis but minimal empirically established findings. Based on the available theoretical frameworks and praxis narratives, both restorative justice and transformative justice centre survivors’ needs, offer healing for individuals, and emphasize accountability for persons responsible for violence; however, restorative justice and transformative justice fundamentally differ in how they conceptualise the root cause of sexual violence and, therefore, what harms they aim to repair. While restorative justice in higher education settings focuses on interpersonal harms resulting from sexual violence, transformative justice emphasises repairing interpersonal harms resulting from sexual violence and transforming the structural conditions that enable sexual violence. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

While restorative justice has been extensively growing in democratic settings, less explored is its connection with transitional justice or, in other words, there have been insufficient attempts to explore the possibility of applying restorative justice mechanisms in countries dealing with the aftermath of mass violence. Seeking to fill this gap, this article addresses the connections between transitional justice and Indigenous demands. Particularly, the study focuses on the role of truth commissions as a restorative justice mechanism with the potential of creating a new narrative on human rights violations (or a ‘narrative turn’). The article then analyses the experience of Indigenous truth commissions in Australia and Canada, considering them within their political contexts and providing a critical analysis of the results. Finally, the study analyses the Argentinean case and the possibility for a truth commission to uncover the legacy of human rights violations against Indigenous communities. It also considers how the comparative experience assists in assessing the pertinence of having a truth commission in Argentina. Altogether, the article aims to explore the role of truth commissions, applied through a decolonial, transformative and actor-centred perspective, and their potential to challenge the narratives that have largely legitimised or denied harms against Indigenous peoples.

The ambiguous status of a prisoner as citizen has implications for rehabilitation and reintegration. Using Mazzucato’s (2017) philosophical work on the responsive-restorative model of justice and the potential of exemplarity as a guiding theory, this article explores how prisoners can be incentivised to become fully citizens. Three concepts for action have been identified in Mazzucato’s work: the virtuous zone, rules of conduct and exemplarity. These actions are reviewed and used to compare in-prison retributive practices and those exercised in a restorative rehabilitation programme which brings together prisoners and surrogate crime victims. The programme was designed in response to high rates of crime and incarceration associated with drug possession and supply in a regional city in Australia. The article concludes with a summary and findings that show how restorative responses can challenge the consequences of prison segregation, recover agency directed to voluntary compliance and exemplify normative conduct. It also demonstrates that restorative rehabilitation can have a residual effect. Some prisoners on release connected with a peer support service, the same organisation from which surrogate victims were drawn for the programme. Restorative rehabilitation is thus shown to have potential for giving ongoing support to prisoners in their transition to full citizenship.

Restorative justice principles have been lauded for their potential to decrease school-based disparities in discipline, especially owing to the disproportionately negative impact on minority students and students with disabilities. Despite high levels of financial investment, little remains known about the quality of restorative justice programmes or the specific mechanism by which restorativeness is embedded into these approaches. Using the Olson and Sarver (2021) Restorative Index as a validation tool, this study assesses the level of restorativeness of twelve school-based restorative justice programmes. These programmes were identified and included on the basis of the fact that they were implemented within a U.S. school, sought to address a specific student behaviour or set of student behaviours through a restorative practice, and were subject to at least one outcomes study available in an English language journal, thesis/dissertation or report. Findings indicate a mixed level of restorative quality between programmes, with outward engagement domains of restorativeness less likely to be evident in programmes when compared with more traditionally known elements of restorative justice. In addition, U.S.-based school restorative justice programmes continue to rely on discipline-oriented practices despite claims of change. We discuss implications for both the Restorative Index and the restorative justice discipline.

Restorative justice practices are relatively new to forensic mental health settings. Therefore, there is limited understanding of where and how these practices might feature in this work. The current study explored the spaces for them in a forensic inpatient hospital drawing upon data from group case supervision. Five themes were developed from three concurrent monthly case supervision sessions attended by fourteen restorative justice practitioners. Challenges to using restorative justice practices where participants had mental health needs were evident, but these needs were not thought to preclude their use. Practitioners brought up implications for workload. Assumptions about the principle of neutrality were raised, where staff had different roles in the process. Staff as participants in restorative justice practices raised considerations around professional identity and vulnerability. Restorative justice practices offered unique and complementary ways to repair harm, but these may not always fit within the values or needs of the organisation. The idea of bringing together people affected by harm can raise worries and may feel counter-intuitive to practices that reduce risk. It was important that new staff were made aware of restorative justice opportunities and that policies and procedures were in place and communicated to protect and foster its new status.