Restorative justice is the organizing theme for the second half of this book on confronting oppression and restoring justice. An empowerment approach links the two key divisions of the text. With so many oppressive forces operating in the world today—terrorism, violent regime change, abject poverty—van Wormer’s exploration into the roots of oppression and injustice is timely.  

Confronting Oppression, Restoring Justice, has as its major task the addressing of the age-old question for social workers, “How can we avoid participating in the oppression?” Or, working from the outside, “How can we help the casualties of economic restructuring or the victims of structural or interpersonal violence?” 

Using an internationally informed perspective, van Wormer tackles concepts such as internalization of oppression, injustice, restorative justice, social exclusion, empowerment, and critical consciousness. Chapter 1 discusses the essence of oppression and distinguishes social injustice from oppression while recognizing the close interconnectedness between them. From this anti-oppressive framework, the author describes the skills of critical analysis needed to confront oppression and injustice in the society.  Chapter 2, which tackles the essence of oppression from a bio-psycho-social standpoint, is in many ways the most unique chapter of the book, especially in terms of the discussion of the biology of oppression. Chapter 3 broadens our horizons with a global perspective on the phenomenon of social exclusion of designated out groups in society. Racism, classism, heterosexism, and sexism are among the subjects discussed. Consciousness-raising exercises highlight this and the following chapter The final chapter in Part I, entitled “The Empowerment Tradition in Social Work” provides a historical approach to empowering policy and practice in social welfare and provides examples of human services programs that successfully deploy strategies of empowerment and confront forces of oppression and injustice.  

Part II is devoted to social injustice of the legalistic aspect of mistreatment of people, the denial of their human rights. The nature of injustice is the subject of chapter 6. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights serves as a template for the discussion on human rights in this and the chapters to follow; the complete document is provided in the appendix. The next chapter shifts gears by introducing easy-to-follow guidelines for students and policy makers to research particular policies in need of change. This book ends with chapter 8, devoted to the principles of restorative justice. Under this rubric is discussion of reparations to persecuted populations, victim-offender reconciliation, and restoring justice to communities.  

Unique to Confronting Oppression, Restoring Justice is the offering of a radical framework for anti-oppressive policy analysis and the infusion of personal narratives of consciousness-raising experiences throughout the text. Examples of exemplary programs and actions to confront oppression and injustice are provided. Also unique is the fact that a book on oppression and injustice could end on a positive note with an in-depth description of restorative justice principles for the settlement of disputes and a peaceful means of righting wrongs against whole populations whose rights have been violated.  

Written for frontline human services practitioners, students, and educators, Confronting Oppression, Restoring Justice arrives at an auspicious time when narrowing global distances breed both corporate political might and worldwide coalition building for social justice. As renowned social justice expert, David G. Gil, writes in the foreword, "Professor van Wormer's book makes important contributions to a radical paradigm of social policy development and social work practice. It presents to the [social work] field an approach aimed at narrowing the gap between the social justice orientation of its Code of Ethics and the actual realities of the dominant policy and practice paradigm.” This work is recommended as a main or supplemental text for courses in the areas of policy, policy analysis, human behavior, and anti-racism.

March 2005