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Introduction
Over the past ten years there has been a reinvigoration of restorative justice (RJ) approaches and practice particularly within the criminal justice system. Robinson and Shapland (2008, p. 337) described this as a "Restorative Justice Boom"; others echoed this sentiment commenting that restorative justice "has possibly been the most influential development in 'crime control'" in the past decade (Crawford and Newburn, 2003, p. 38).
These criminal justice developments have been wide reaching and some could argue removed from the initial community roots of RJ. At a recent conference, one delegate commented that within criminal justice there has been a movement to call "anything good" restorative, a feeling which many restorative purists would echo. Due to the dilution of what would be recognised as traditional RJ and the widening definition of the term it is therefore essential to clarify the interpretation of "What is RJ?". When commenting on RJ within criminal justice, RJ is referred to as the communication between those directly impacted by harm (Ministry of Justice, 2014). The process may include a victim offender conference, it may be an informal meeting, it could be conducted face to face, through shuttle processes, letters, and recorded message, but importantly with all sides of the conflict engaged. This definition is not intended to discredit offender based programmes that are branded restorative, nor restorative approaches in schools; however, from the perspective of crime and assisting victims to cope and recover from the impact and to restore those communities affected by conflicts, both sides of the conflict need to be given the opportunity to participate.
RJ and the police
The police service embraced the concept of restorative disposals following a movement to reduce unnecessary criminalisation, target chasing and a bureaucratic system. This crime disposal type did not criminalise and gave the flexibility of a more tailored restorative and rehabilitative response. This level of creativity within sanctions influenced directly by the individual circumstances were not as immediately apparent when utilising other existing out of court disposals. The rejuvenation of RJ appeared to be spearheaded by the Youth Restorative Disposal (YRD) pilots initiated from a policy and central government drive. This pilot ran between April 2008 and September 2009 in eight police force areas (YJB Pilots, 2011). However, it is...