An area of untapped potential? The use of restorative justice in the fight against serious and organized crime: A perception study
| Author | Xavier L’Hoiry,Nikki D’Souza |
| Published date | 01 April 2021 |
| Date | 01 April 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1748895819858379 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895819858379
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2021, Vol. 21(2) 224 –241
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895819858379
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An area of untapped potential?
The use of restorative justice
in the fight against serious and
organized crime: A perception
study
Nikki D’Souza
Durham Constabulary and University of Sheffield, UK
Xavier L’Hoiry
University of Sheffield, UK
Abstract
This article presents the results of a perception study which examined the potential for
deploying restorative justice (RJ) in the context of serious and organized crime (SOC)
offending. This is a hitherto unexplored area of debate and the study sought to engage the
key stakeholders in RJ processes – victims, offenders and practitioners – to gather their views
as to the suitability and desirability of extending RJ in this way. Employing a mixed methods
approach, the study engaged over 40 participants across the three stakeholder groups. The
findings challenge existing, deeply embedded orthodoxies concerning the very nature of
SOC offending and offenders’ motivations, as well confirming the multiplicity of SOC victims’
expectations. The findings also demonstrate the urgent need for further debate concerning
how best to account for the complexity of SOC victims’ needs which are currently unmet by
the systemic limits of the criminal justice system.
Keywords
Local policing, offenders, restorative approaches, restorative justice, serious and organized
crime, victims
Corresponding author:
Xavier L’Hoiry, Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, Elmfield, Northumberland Road,
Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S10 2TU, UK.
Email: x.lhoiry@sheffield.ac.uk
858379CRJ0010.1177/1748895819858379Criminology & Criminal JusticeD’Souza and L’Hoiry
research-article2019
Article
D’Souza and L’Hoiry 225
Introduction
Restorative justice (RJ) interventions have grown exponentially in criminal justice and
are now commonly considered to result in a range of beneficial outcomes for all parties
involved. In the United Kingdom, RJ is defined by the Restorative Justice Council (2016)
as bringing ‘those harmed by crime or conflict and those responsible for the harm into
communication, enabling everyone affected by a particular incident to play a part in
repairing the harm and finding a positive way forward’. Participants in RJ processes
report significant satisfaction rates underpinned by a multitude of positive outcomes
(Strang et al., 2013). For victims, participation in RJ often results in feelings of closure
at least partly due to being given the opportunity to explain to offenders the impact of
their crimes (Shapland et al., 2006b). Offenders report that RJ offers the opportunity to
‘get on with life’ by apologizing to victims and taking greater responsibility for their
actions (Shapland et al., 2006b: 64). RJ offers both offenders and victims pathways to
‘procedural justice’ (Daly, 2004), within which all parties are able to express themselves
fairly and respectfully. The economic argument in support of RJ is also compelling, with
potential savings quoted as high as £275 million (Matrix Evidence, 2009) when com-
pared to the costs of adversarial processes. With these benefits in mind, there has been
growing debate concerning the potential for RJ to be increasingly deployed in potentially
challenging domains of offending where victim–offender dichotomies may be unclear or
where the nature of victimhood is likely to be highly complex.
Though the focus of this article is in the UK, RJ traces its origins internationally with
indigenous justice systems in Canada, Australia and New Zealand heavily influential in
the formation of RJ practices (Nancarrow, 2006). In the 1970s, early incarnations of RJ
could be found in the USA and Canada, such as Victim Offender Reconciliation
Programmes rolled out in Kitchener, Ontario and Elkhart, Indiana (Dittenhoffer and
Ericson, 1983). The subsequent development of RJ can be seen worldwide, with the
Centre for Justice and Reconciliation (2019) listing over 100 countries across all conti-
nents in which RJ activities are taking place.1 Moreover, much of RJ’s innovative appli-
cations to challenging contexts of offending have taken place in locations as diverse as
Australia, Colombia, Italy, Chile and elsewhere (see Braithwaite, 2016; Bueno, 2013).
An international community of scholars and practitioners is therefore increasingly inter-
ested in exploring new applications of RJ, some of which we discuss below to contextu-
alize our own proposed new application.
Responding to this growing interest, this article presents the results of an exploratory
study which sought to gather the views of offenders and victims of serious and organized
crime activities about the prospect of deploying RJ in the context of these offences. The
study also collected the views of RJ practitioners to offer advice on its suitability, desir-
ability and feasibility. We propose that an extension of RJ to a previously unexplored
area of serious offending – serious and organized crime (SOC) – should be considered,
potentially allowing for parity with victims of non-SOC crime. We outline some of the
academic critique of policing SOC in the UK before highlighting the growing recogni-
tion of the applicability of RJ in complex offending domains. We then present the meth-
odological approach adopted in our research and present our findings. We conclude with
a discussion of the implications of our findings, reflecting upon the pressing need for
further dialogue on the utility of RJ in the SOC context.
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