Approach with caution not cynicism: Rape and restorative justice

From the post by Nikki Godden on Inherently Human: 

Typically, feminists are resistant to the idea of responding to rape  – or sexual violence more generally – through restorative justice. After decades of campaigning to get the harms women suffer recognised in politics and law, their concerns that such a move will trivialise rape and provide only ‘cheap justice’ are fair. So too are the criticisms that restorative justice cannot address or appropriately account for the gendered power imbalances between the victim and offender, and that, as a result, it may cause further harm to the victim and fail to protect her and others from future violence. While this means I’m wary of restorative justice as a response to rape, I do think there is value in exploring this idea. Likewise, in a 2010 report Jennifer Brown et al. mention restorative justice as an ‘expanded justice alternative’ that could be considered – although they are similarly careful to set the sceptical feminist scene.

Oct 20, 2010 Policy, Case:Violence, Case:Sexual

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