Young People, Trouble, and Crime

Abstract

Restorative justice has emerged in recent years as a promising approach to youth crime focused on repairing harm and rebuilding relationships. Although the practice of restorative justice has already demonstrated significant effect on individual crime victims and offenders in a number of jurisdictions around the world, a greater community-building potential has yet to be realized as a result of the failure to understand and apply restorative principles in diverse contexts. This article presents an overview of the normative theory of restorative justice focusing on three core principles. It then considers the connection between restorative theories of intervention and informal social control and social support mechanisms and the application of restorative justice practices as a means of strengthening both as core components of social capital in the response to youth crime and troublesome behavior.