Chris Cunneen and Carolyn Hoyle, Debating Restorative Justice
| Published date | 01 December 2011 |
| Author | Barry Goldson |
| Date | 01 December 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865811420027 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
44(3) 440–455
!The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865811420027
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Book Reviews
Chris Cunneen and Carolyn Hoyle, Debating Restorative Justice, Hart Publishing: Oxford, 2010, 209
pp.: ISBN: 9781849460224, £15.00 (pbk)
Chris Cunneen’s and Carolyn Hoyle’s book comprises the first contribution to a new
Debating Law series introduced by Hart Publishing. In the Preface to the book, the series
editor, Peter Cane, explains that every volume within the series
will contain two essays ...each developing a strong and intellectually rigorous argument on
a topic of contemporary and ongoing debate. The aim is to stimulate, challenge and inform
by bringing contrasting perspectives together [and giving] essayists the opportunity to make
a fresh and provocative statement of a normative position freed from the tight requirements
of ‘balance’.
It is an intriguing rationale and, if restorative justice provides an ideal ‘topic of contem-
porary and ongoing debate’ within criminology and criminal justice studies, it is difficult
to imagine better-placed essayists than Cunneen and Hoyle for the purposes of ‘bringing
contrasting perspectives together’ and prosecuting a ‘strong and intellectually rigorous
argument’.
Restorative justice has attracted global interest in the late-modern period.
Accordingly, it has spawned widespread and varied policy and practice experimentation,
it has been the focus of substantial research activity and it has given rise to a monu-
mental literature. That said, both the legitimacy and the efficacy of restorative justice
form lively sites of controversy and contestation, even if the nature and scope of the core
‘debates’ remain profoundly unresolved. Within this context Chris Cunneen, Professor
of Criminology at the Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Australia, and Carolyn
Hoyle, Reader in Criminology at the University of Oxford, UK, are well-established
scholars capable of synthesizing and extending the principal terms of engagement. Each
has earned significant international recognition for addressing restorative justice through
their empirical research and theoretical work, and, in many respects, their differentiated
conceptualizations and contrasting interpretations represent the divergent analytical
currents within the wider criminological ‘debate’; Hoyle (pp. 1–100) is manifestly enthu-
siastic in seeking to make ‘the case for restorative justice’, whilst Cunneen (pp. 101–187)
is more circumspect in offering a critical exposition of ‘the limitations of restorative
justice’. The juxtaposition of their respective positions provides an accessible, engaging,
scholarly and thought-provoking read.
In setting out her stall in the early pages of her essay, Hoyle is taken by the perceived
‘inclusive and collaborative nature of restorative justice’s problem solving focus’,
together with what she regards as its capacity to reach ‘beyond victims and offenders
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