Restorative justice and gendered and sexualised violence
10-12 November 2003
Associate Professor Kathleen Daly, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University, Brisbane
SAJJ-CJ Technical Report No. 3
Part 1: Context and overview of RJ
Context
I began my interest in RJ over 10 years ago, on a snowy day in Michigan in February 1993. On that day, I received an express parcel from Australia, from John Braithwaite, who is now recognised as a major international spokesperson for RJ. John asked me to comment on a paper on the uses of RJ in cases of violence against women (sexual assault and domestic violence). I was fascinated and intrigued. We subsequently co-authored the paper (Braithwaite and Daly 1994).
During 1994 and 95, I applied for and received a Senior Fulbright Scholarship to spend 6 months in Australia to study conferencing. I came to Australia in September 1995, and was based at the Australian National University. A month after, I travelled to Adelaide to meet with members of the Family Conference Team. I observed 15 conferences in South Australia, and 15 in the ACT. While I was based in the ACT, I was able to see how a major project on conferencing – the Re-Integrative Shaming Experiments (RISE) – was operating. This helped me to design my research project in South Australia (both building on RISE, but doing things differently). I received a grant to direct a major project in 1998 and 1999, and I relocated from Brisbane to Adelaide to run the project in both years. The project is called the South Australia Juvenile Justice Research on Conferencing Project (SAJJ). We observed 89 conferences that dealt with particular offence categories (all cases of violence, and only those property offences having personal or community victims), and we interviewed all the offenders and the primary victim associated with each conference in 1998, and again in 1999.
Although I came to Australia initially interested to explore the uses of RJ in cases of violence against women, it was not possible to conduct research on this because conferencing is confined mainly to adolescent offenders, and the number of annual cases is so low. Thus, my next major project aimed to address this problem. I received a second major grant on the ‘Race and gender politics of new justice practices’ (2001-03). My research group and I are analysing the appropriateness of RJ in cases of sexual assault and domestic violence, and developments in Indigenous justice (urban sentencing courts and other justice practices).
A. Overview of RJ: used around the world, but most developed in Australia and New Zealand, in an established, legislated way.
1. Varieties of RJ
There are many varieties of RJ in the juvenile and criminal justice contexts. It’s used
• as diversion from court (in Australia, almost entirely for adolescent offenders, not adults)
• to provide pre-sentencing advice to judicial officers (in some Australian jurisidictions for adolescent offenders; in New Zealand for all adolescent offenders, and also for adult offenders)
• as a component of sentencing (in South Australia, has been used for victim-impact meetings)
• as pre-prison release meetings between offenders and victims (or their families)
The practices that fly under the RJ flag are conferences, circles and sentencing circles, and victim-offender mediation
2. RJ’s identifying features
• offenders have admitted to the offence (or chosen not to deny)
• offenders (and their supporters) have a face to face meeting with the victim (or a victim representative) (and their supporters) (although some argue that this is not an essential component); there may be other relevant people present
• it is an informal process, although the person organising and running it (the coordinator or convenor) establishes ground rules for participants (such as people must listen to each other; everyone has a chance to speak)
• it relies on the knowledge and decision-making capacities of lay actors rather than legal actors (although conferences as diversion have a police officer present)
• aim is to reduce victim fear and anger toward the offender, for the offender to apologise and make up for what he or she did (undertakings or penalties are agreed to), and for the offender to recognise the harm s/he causes to a victim (perhaps to remember in the future that crimes have negative consequences on victims and ‘the community’)
3. How RJ differs from established criminal justice
(a) Challenging myths. There are some claims about RJ that I challenge.
• RJ is not the opposite of retributive justice.
Better to say that RJ differs from ‘established criminal justice’. The reason: ‘retribution’ has many meanings but two core ones are that it means to censure an offence, and is tied to proportionality. It does not mean revenge or ‘being punitive’, although it is colloquially understood that way. In several articles, I have argued for incorporating retribution (as censure) in a RJ process.
• RJ was not the dominant form of pre-modern justice, nor is it right to say that Indigenous justice practices are forms of RJ.
A common claim is that New Zealand conferencing ‘has its direct roots in Maori culture’ (Shearing, 2001: 218, note 5; see also Consedine, 1995). This is not accurate. Conferencing emerged in the 1980s, in the context of Maori political challenges to white New Zealanders and to their welfare and criminal justice systems.
Conferencing is a fragmented justice form: it splices white, bureaucratic forms of justice with elements of informal justice that may include non-white (or non-Western) values or methods of judgment. With that flexibility, many see its potential for more culturally appropriate forms of justice. But to say that conferencing is an indigenous justice practice (or ‘has its roots in indigenous justice’) is to re-engage a white-centred view of the world.
• RJ is a nominal concept; it is not just about ‘restoring’.
John Braithwaite (and others) make a mistake here, when they say that RJ is about ‘restoring victims, offenders, and communities’. RJ is better seen as a nominal concept that stands for a set of activities (see below), rather than as literally and narrowly being about ‘restoring’. This conceptual shift is important in debating the appropriateness of RJ in, for example, domestic violence because, as Coker (2002, p. 143) argues, ‘the concept of restoration suggests that a prior state existed in which [a domestic violence] victim experienced significant liberty and the offender was integrated into the community’ when ‘neither [may be] true …’
(b) What RJ does
• engages lay persons actively in the legal process;
• provides a forum for discussing fears and insecurities about crime;
• opens up communication and linkages between people who would otherwise be distant and angry (for example, cross-alliances between an offender’s supporters and victims);
• provides an opportunity for an offender to admit responsibility and acknowledge a victim, and for a victim to meet an offender and understand the reasons for the behaviour
• may act as a forum for moral education of the offender (and even a victim)
• links the undertaking (or penalty) to the offending behaviour and how it may be repaired
I’d prefer a term such as ‘engaging justice’ or ‘communicative justice’. However, we have RJ, and need to stick to that term.
Several points to make: (1) From the list of things that ‘RJ does’, it may not be able to accomplish these things routinely. (2) RJ is set in motion only after an offender has admitted responsibility for an offence. Currently, there is no mechanism for fact-finding. (3) In general, RJ has been applied primarily to youth justice cases, although increasingly it is being used in adult cases.
B. Evidence on RJ
Note: I’ll focus my review on conferencing as a diversion from court for adolescent crime, but be aware that it can be used in many other contexts. For example, John Braithwaite’s latest book, RJ and Responsive Regulation (2002), discusses its use in corporate crime, international diplomacy, and policies of sustainability. I suspect that RJ may be easier to apply in these contexts than to common crimes of adults and adolescents or common crimes of the socially excluded, including all forms of sexualised and gendered violence.
1. There are very high levels of procedural justice in conferences.
The most consistent finding across all the studies in the region is that conferences receive very high marks along dimensions of procedural justice, that is, victims and offenders view the process and the outcomes as fair.
This is an important finding. Procedural justice scholars argue that when citizens perceive a legal process as fair, when they are listened to and treated with respect, there is an affirmation of the legitimacy of the legal order.
The ‘PJ’ variables tap broadly ‘satisfaction’ with the process, and these tend to be a bit higher for the offenders than the victims.
2. There is relatively less evidence of and more variation in restorativeness in conferences.
The measures of restorativeness tapped the degree to which offenders and victims recognised the other and were affected by the other; they focused on the degree to which there was positive movement between the offender and victim and their supporters during the conference.
Whereas high proportions of victims and offenders (80 to 95 percent) said that the process was fair (among other variables tapping procedural justice), ‘restorativeness’ was evident in 30 to 50 percent of conferences (depending on the item), and solidly in no more than about one-third. Thus, in this jurisdiction where conferences are used routinely as a diversion from court, fairness is more easily achieved than restorativeness.
Why is this the case? Fairness is a measure of the coordinators’ and police officers’ behaviour and words in the conference. As the professionals, they are polite, they listen, and they establish ground rules of respect for others and civility in the conference process. Fairness is established in the relationship between the professionals and participants. Restorativeness emerges in the relationships between victim, offender, and their supporters.
Restorativeness requires a degree of empathic concern and perspective-taking; and as measured by psychologists’ scales, these capacities are more likely present for adults than adolescents.
Restorativeness cannot be scripted in the way that fairness can. Restorativeness works with emotions and feelings, with anger and shame, with feeling harmed and feeling bad. Fairness works with established roles and procedures, and at times with deceit, as for example, when judicial officers and police officers must appear to be fair, polite, and respectful toward offenders, when in fact they have a low opinion of them. In short, it is easier to pretend to be fair and polite by the professionals than it is to pretend to act in ways we may think of as ‘restorative’.
I have been exploring the degree to which conferences may be more or less ‘restorative’, and I find that a good deal rests on the features of the offence itself, including the character of victim-offender relationships, the actual harm (that is personal violence, a break and enter, a car theft; or damage to a building), the degree to which the victim felt distressed from the incident, and the gender composition of the offence.
3. Conference effects on victims: general findings
Analysing the SAJJ data from the 1998 and 1999 victim interviews:
• Over 75 percent of conference victims felt angry toward the offender before the conference; this dropped to 44 percent after the conference and was 39 percent a year later.
• Close to 40 percent of victims were frightened of the offender before the conference; this dropped to 25 percent after the conference and was 18 percent a year later.
In the 1999 interviews, we asked the victims, ‘Which of the following two statements better describes how you’re feeling about the incident today. Would you say: it’s all behind you; you have fully recovered; or it’s partly behind you; there are still some things that bother you; you’ve not fully recovered from it’.
• 65% of the victims said they had fully recovered from the offence, and that it was all behind them.
4. Conference effects on victims: sub-group differences:
• variation by gender: over time, female victims remained angry; reductions in their fear were less than for male victims.
• variation by degree to which the offence caused distress to victims: the more an offence was contested by an offender and the more it involved significant injury and distress to a victim, the less likely the conference had restorative elements, and the less likely the victim said he/she fully recovered a year later.
5. Conference effects on offenders
From SAJJ, When the YP/offenders were remorseful in conferences and when the conference agreement was reached by genuine consensus, YPs were less likely to re-offend.
This result came from a multivariate analysis, where we controlled for key variables known to predict re-offending (previous offending, social marginality, race-ethnicity, and sex). Thus, things occur in conferences that are associated with (or predictive of) reductions in re-offending.
From RISE, for 4 offence groups, there were significant reductions in rates of re-offending for 1 offence group; personal violence.
C. Concluding points
RJ offers hope and inspiration for a way forward.
However, advocates may romanticize RJ.
The SAJJ project finds that youth justice conferences are variable events. Some victims and offenders come to conferences with closed minds and negative orientations that cannot be changed; others come with open minds and positive orientations. The conference process may engage restorative orientations already present in offenders and victims, or it may create openings for those orientations to emerge.
Part 2: Applications of RJ to gendered and sexualised violence
Context
Over the past 2 years, my research group and I have been engaged in a program of research to study whether RJ is appropriate in cases of gendered and sexualised violence (including sexual assault, child sexual abuse, domestic and family violence). We have conducted these studies:
(1) interviews with directors or managers of Australian victim advocacy or service provider groups, to get their views on what the criminal justice system can (and cannot do) for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. What do victim advocates understand restorative justice to be, what do they perceive as its benefits and problems. (We plan to interview such groups in New Zealand.) (Curtis-Fawley and Daly, 2004).
(2) interviews with Australian Indigenous and non-Indigenous women, asking them a similar set of questions about criminal justice and restorative justice (Nancarrow, 2003).
(3) archival analysis of nearly 400 sexual offence cases disposed of by court and by youth justice conference over the past 6.5 years in an Australian jurisdiction (Daly, Curtis-Fawley, and Bouhours, 2003, Final Report and Technical Report No. 3).
(4) in-depth analysis of 15 conferences of sexual assault or domestic violence cases, with a focus on what happened at these conferences, and how victims were affected (data gathered, paper in preparation).
The aim of our research is to examine empirically and sympathetically the many claims and critiques that feminist scholars and victim advocates have lodged toward restorative justice.
A. Limitations of the critical literature
1. There is little empirical research. The reason is that feminist critiques of RJ have been heeded by legislators and others. With some exceptions, most jurisdictions in the world have put all forms of gendered violence beyond the reach of RJ.
2. What we do know comes entirely from studies of youth justice cases, that is, offenders are under 18 years of age. Moreover, the RJ practices studied are largely diversion from court.
Those critical of RJ in cases of ‘gendered violence’ have in mind an adult offender, and they think that diversion from court sends the ‘wrong message’.
B. Potential problems of RJ in gendered and sexualised violence
For victims
• puts victims at risk of continued violence (Busch 2002)
• informal process can permit power imbalances to go unchecked and reinforce abusive behaviour (Stubbs 2002)
• some victims may be unable to advocate on their behalf effectively (Koss 2000); consensus building of group may minimise a victim’s interests (Stubbs 1997)
• pressure to accept an apology
• outcomes not serious enough
• hopes raised in victim’s mind that offender will change, when a relationship should be severed
• some victims may want the state to intervene on their behalf and do not want burdens of RJ (Shapland 2000)
For the community
• ‘community’ norms may reinforce, not undermine male dominance and victim blaming (Coker 2002)
• friends and family may support victims, but may also have divided loyalties and collude with the violence
For offenders
• RJ may not reduce re-offending
• may view RJ conferences as a ‘soft option’, reinforcing their belief that violence is not wrong
• may use the conference to diminish guilt, trivialise the violence, or shift the blame to the victim
Symbolic implications
• informal process and penalties may appear to deliver ‘cheap justice’ (Coker 1999)
• appearance that serious cases are not being treated seriously after decades of reform
C. Potential benefits of RJ in gendered and sexualised violence
• RJ processes can validate a victim’s experiences and acknowledge that she is not to blame for the abuse
• RJ processes can address violence occurring between intimates who will be in continued relationships
• RJ processes create forums that are tailored to child victims’ needs and capacities
• RJ procedures open and flexible, an alternative to the adversarial process.
• RJ processes give victims a chance to voice to their story and to be heard.
• Victims can be empowered by participating in decision making and negotiating desired outcomes.
• RJ processes are less formal and therefore less threatening for victims.
• RJ procedures demand that offenders take responsibility for their behaviour.
• RJ creates opportunities for relationships to be repaired, if that is what is desired.
D. Archival study of sexual offence cases disposed of by court and conference.
Our research on nearly 400 sexual offence cases finalised in court or by conference and caution, suggests that, from the point of view of victims, conferences are better than court, and certainly not a ‘soft option’.
Our research questions were:
• what differentiates a court from conference case? Is it qualities of the offence, or is it largely an offender’s admission?
• what happens once a case goes to court? what share of cases are dismissed outright? what are the penalties imposed? how do these vary for court and conference cases?
• from a victim’s point of view, which appears to be the better option? having your case go to conference or to court?
Findings, in brief
From a victim’s point of view, you are better off if the case goes to a conference. The major reason is that if your case goes to conference, something happens (that is, an admission by offender, penalty of some sort). On the other hand, if your case goes to court, your chances of any sexual offence being proved is 50%. In other words, half the cases are dismissed or withdrawn; in half of cases, ‘nothing happens’.
Much of the discussion about RJ in cases of sexual assault centres on the dynamics of the conference (or RJ) process itself. People have in mind a victim ‘having to be in the same room’ as an offender, and this concerns critics especially. Another concern is that when a case goes to an RJ process, it is not being treated ‘seriously enough’. Our research finds just the opposite is happening. So long as those who have offended can continue to deny they’ve done anything wrong, the legal process can do little for victims.
The promise of RJ in cases of sexual assault is it opens up a window for those who have offended to admit to what they have done. That’s the crucial element that we need to be working on.
Detailed findings (see further in Daly et al. [2003] Final Report, available on Daly website)
1. Court cases started out as more serious (legal charges and behavioural elements) than conference cases.
2. However, just half of court cases that began with any sexual offence were proved of any sexual offence.
3. The cases with the most serious charge (rape) were least likely to be proved of any sexual offence. By the time the cases are finalised and proved, court and conference cases were of similar seriousness.
4. Court cases took twice as long to finalise as conference cases
5. The factors that predicted whether a case would be referred to (or finalised in) court were different from those that predicted whether a case would be proved in court:
Factors predicting whether a case would be referred to court:
• YP (young person or offender) made no admission or refused to comment to the police
• YP’s criminal history: one or more cautions, conferences or court finalisations before the SAJJ-CJ case
• offence seriousness: the offence was more serious (offence elements, scale)
• victim-offender relations: offence was extra-familial
• YP’s age: older were more likely in court
Factors predicting whether the YP admitted to the offence partially or fully to the police (compared to saying nothing or refusing to comment):
• YP had legal advice before or during questioning by the police
• YP’s criminal history: one or more cautions, conferences, or court finalisations before the SAJJ-CJ case
• offence seriousness: the offence was more serious (offence elements, dichotomy)
• victim-offender relations: the offence was extra-familial
Two variables neared statistical significance
• YP’s age (older more likely not to admit)
• Aboriginality (Aboriginal YPs more likely not to admit)
Factors predicting whether a case would be proved in court:
• YP made an admission to the police (fully or partly, immediately or later)
• offence seriousness: the offence was less serious (offence elements, dichotomy)
• victim-offender relations: the offence was intra-familial (siblings or step relations)
6. Penalties and undertakings from conference do more for victims than cases going to court. Court puts a legal cloud in some offender’s lives (e.g., a suspended sentence).
Comparison of penalties received in conference and court
• 29% of court YPs had to attend Mary Street program, but over half of conference YPs (52%) had to do so
Mary Street: program for adolescent sexual offenders in Adelaide.
Note: Re-offending was lower for YPs who attended Mary Street.
For conference cases, of those who attended Mary Street, 42% re-offended; for those who did not, 61% re-offended.
For court cases, of those who attended Mary Street, 50% re-offended; for those who did not, 64% re-offended. Results are similar if the analysis includes YPs who attended Mary Street in the pre-trial or pre-conference period.
• Written apologies by YPs to victims were recorded in 32% of conference cases, and verbal apologies in 67%, but neither is part of the documented evidence in the court cases
• A higher share of conference YPs (24%) were expected to do community service than court YPs (11%), although the median number of hours is higher for court (96) than conference (50) cases
• A higher share of conference YPs (23%) were ordered to stay away from the victim than court YPs (10%)
• 20% of court YPs had detention imposed; in all but 3 cases it was suspended; for the 3 YPs who were to serve detention time, the median length was 17 weeks.
Study summary: court and conference handling of sex offences
• Conferences outperform court on measures that matter to victims: acknowledgement of the harm (rather than offender denial or court dismissal), timely disposition, and undertakings that are meaningful and reduce the chances of re-offending, especially when tied to a therapeutic intervention.
• More serious cases are referred to court, but once cases are finalized as proved in court, their legal seriousness erodes substantially: they are nearly identical to conference cases in legal seriousness.
• Conference YPs do not get off easy. They do more for victims (apology and acknowledgement), more for the community (the proportion who do community service), and more for themselves (Mary Street) than court YPs. Court penalties put YPs under greater risk of further legal intervention (e.g., suspended sentences).
• Court cases take twice as long to finalise than conference cases. If victims show up in court on the day of finalisation, half will learn that the case has been dismissed or charges withdrawn (no sexual offence at all has been proved)
Study implications
• We need to examine police questioning of and legal advice for YPs who are reported for sexual offences. For example, of 111 cases not proved in court, 26% of the YPs had made full or partial admissions to the police about the offence. From a victim’s point of view, it may have been preferable for cases where there is some admission for the case to go to conference, not court, if only that some offence is proved.
• Some young people charged with sexual offences may not have committed an offence. But with just half of cases being proved of any sexual offence in court, something else is going on. The court process encourages a denial of sexual offending, whereas the conference process encourages an admission and taking responsibility for the offence. While there are concerns about ‘power imbalances’ in the conference process, these may have less negative consequences to victims than offenders who walk out of the courtroom with the legal judgment that ‘nothing happened’.
• The court has symbolic importance for many victims: it is a place where many people think that serious offending is (or should be) treated seriously. Our study shows the opposite is occurring (and it confirms findings of research on the prosecution of sexual assault by adults). The court is a place where offenders can exercise their right to deny offending. Conferencing, or RJ processes more generally, may help to encourage admissions to sexual offending.
References and bibliography
Daly program of research on RJ and gendered violence (2001-03)
Curtis-Fawley, S. and K. Daly (2004) “Victim advocacy groups and the idea of restorative justice.” Violence Against Women (forthcoming)
Daly, K., S. Curtis-Fawley, and B. Bouhours, with the assistance of L. Weber and R. Scholl (2003) Final Report: Sexual Offence Cases Finalised in Court, by Conference, and by Formal Caution in South Australia for Young Offenders, 1995-2001. Brisbane: School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University
Daly, K., S. Curtis-Fawley, and B. Bouhours, with the assistance of L. Weber and R. Scholl (2003) SAJJ Technical Report No. 3: Sexual Offence Archival Analysis. Brisbane: School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University
Nancarrow, H. (2003) In Search of Justice in Domestic and Family Violence. MA(Honours) Thesis, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University.
Daly, K. (2002) “Sexual assault and restorative justice.” In H. Strang and J. Braithwaite (eds.) Restorative Justice and Family Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Other related Daly papers, some with colleagues, on RJ
Daly, K. (2003) “Making variation a virtue: evaluating the potential and limits of restorative justice.” In E. Weitekamp and H.-J. Kerner (eds.) Restorative Justice in Context: International Practice and Directions. Devon, England: Willan Publishing.
Daly, K. (2003) “Mind the gap: restorative justice in theory and practice.” In A. von Hirsch et al. (eds.) Restorative Justice and Criminal Justice: Competing or Reconcilable Paradigms? Oxford: Hart Publishing.
Daly, K. and H. Hayes (2001) “Restorative justice and conferencing in Australia.” Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, 186. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.
Hayes, H. and K. Daly (2003) “Youth justice conferencing and re-offending.” Justice Quarterly 20(4) (in press).
Daly, K. and H. Hayes (2002) “Restorative justice and conferencing.” In A. Graycar and P. Grabosky (eds.) Handbook of Australian Criminology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Daly, K. (2002) “Restorative justice: the real story.” Punishment & Society 4(1): 55-79.
Daly, K. (2001) “Conferencing in Australia and New Zealand: variations, research findings, and
prospects.” In A. Morris and G. Maxwell (eds.) Restorative Justice for Juveniles: Conferencing, Mediation and Circles. Oxford: Hart Publishing.
Daly, K. (2000) “Revisiting the relationship between retributive and restorative justice.” In H. Strang and J. (eds.) Restorative Justice: Philosophy to Practice. Dartmouth/Ashgate.
Daly, K. (2000) “Restorative justice in diverse and unequal societies.” Law in Context 17(1): 167-90.
Daly, K. and J. Kitcher (1999) “The revolution of restorative justice through researcher-practitioner partnerships.” Ethics and Justice 2(1): 14-20.
Daly, K. and R. Immarigeon (1998) “The past, present, and future of restorative justice: some critical reflections.” The Contemporary Justice Review 1 (1): 21-45.
Other references cited
Braithwaite, J. (2002) Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation. New York: Oxford.
Braithwaite, J. and K. Daly (1994) “Masculinities, violence, and communitarian control.” In T. Newburn and E. A. Stanko (eds.) Just Boys Doing Business? New York: Routledge.
Busch, R. (2002) “Domestic violence and restorative justice initiatives: Who pays if we get it wrong?” In H. Strang and J. Braithwaite (eds.) Restorative Justice and Family Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coker, D. (1999) “Enhancing autonomy for battered women: Lessons from Navajopeacemaking.” UCLA Law Review, 47(1): 1.
Coker, D. (2002) “Transformative justice: Anti-subordination processes in cases of domestic violence.” In H. Strang and J. Braithwaite (eds.) Restorative Justice and Family Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Consedine, J. (1995) Restorative Justice: Healing the Effects of Crime. Lyttleton, New Zealand: Ploughshares Publications.
Koss, M. (2000) “Blame, shame, and community: Justice responses to violence against women.” American Psychologist, 1332-43.
Shapland, J. (2000) “Victims and criminal justice: Creating responsible criminal justice agencies.” In A. Crawford and J. Goodey (eds.) Integrating a Victim Perspective within Criminal Justice: International Debates. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Shearing, C. (2001) “Punishment and the changing face of the governance,” Punishment & Society 3(2): 203-20.
Stubbs, J. (1997) “Shame, defiance, and violence against women: a critical analysis of ‘communitarian’ conferencing.” In S. Cook and J. Bessant (eds.) Women’s Encounters with Violence: Australian Experiences. London: Sage.
Stubbs, J. (2002) “Domestic violence and women’s safety: feminist challenges to restorative justice.” In H. Strang and J. Braithwaite (eds.) Restorative Justice and Family Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Recommended reading
Frederick, L., & Lizdas, K. (2003). The Role of Restorative Justice in the Battered Women’s Movement. Battered Women’s Justice Project.
Mills, L. (2003). Insult to Injury: Rethinking our Responses to Intimate Abuse. Princeton:
University Press.
