Summary
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Adam Crawford opens this chapter with the observation that restorative justice is not only a major development in criminological thinking but also a global social movement. At the heart of restorative justice philosophy, he says, lies a concern with a particular mode of participatory and inclusive conflict resolution, as well as an emphasis on healing relationships, restoring victims, restoring offenders, and restoring communities. It is on these bases that Crawford explores the manner in which recent developments in England and Wales with respect to juvenile offenders have been affected by restorative justice ideas; he further considers their potential implications within the current criminal justice policy context. Youth justice reforms developed in England and Wales over two distinct waves of legislation: the Crime and Disorder Act 1998; and the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999. In discussing these developments, Crawford argues that the current government has adopted an eclectic, scattered approach to the integration of restorative justice into the youth justice system, and that this approach contains a number of tensions and contradictions.
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