Holding Restorative Justice Accountable

Part I of this Article provides a better understanding of the restorative justice theory and its practical expressions. It describes the values and objectives upon which restorative justice is premised and introduces the three most common restorative justice practices: victim-offender mediation, group conferencing and circles. Part II introduces the democratic experimentalism model and demonstrates its compatibility with the restorative justice theory. Part III introduces four restorative justice programs currently operating in the United States, two operated by courts and two by prosecuting agencies.

Part IV demonstrates the inadequacy of the evaluation mechanisms currently employed by these programs and emphasizes the importance of comparison between different programs in holding restorative justice programs accountable. Part V establishes the compatibility of all four case studies with a democratic experimentalist regime and demonstrates the practicality of this proposal. Finally, part VI illuminates and discusses the difficulty of comparing very different restorative justice programs, but concludes that such a comparison, as an inseparable component of an experimentalist regime, is essential for effective program accountability.