Restorative Justice and Sexual Violence: An Annotated Bibliography

Introduction

Restorative justice (RJ) has long been a tool used to deal with the aftermath of crime and social harms by seeking to repair harms done to relationships, communities, and individuals. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in RJ resulting from a recognition of: the limitations of the traditional criminal justice system for victims of crimeFootnote 1; the potential benefits of RJ in terms of costs, outcomes, and efficiencies; and the positive impacts on all parties in terms of healing. 

While there are multiple definitions of RJ, the Federal Provincial Territorial Working Group on RJ in Canada defines RJ as “an approach to justice that seeks to repair harm by providing an opportunity for those harmed and those who take responsibility for the harm to communicate about and address their needs in the aftermath of a crime.”

Rather than focusing on punishment, an underlying principle of RJ is that crime harms people and relationships. RJ may be seen as a process or practice, or as a set of principles, values, and perspectives (see for instance Karp et al., 2016; Zehr, 2002). Some of these principles include respect, compassion, and inclusivity. RJ can also take many different forms (e.g., conferences, victim/offender mediation, sentencing circles) and can occur at all stages of the criminal legal process (e.g., pre-charge, post-charge, or post-sentencing). While RJ can be used as a dispute resolution tool in other sectors (such as education), the work reviewed in this report deals with RJ to address criminal offending.

Though RJ may often be an option to address harm when there are low-level offences, there is a growing interest in exploring and assessing its use for other types of offences, including instances of adult sexual violence. Sexual violence is widespread and many government and non-government reports document the nature and prevalence of sexual violence in workplaces, schools, homes, and communities (Angus Reid, 2014; Cotter, 2016; ESDC, 2017; Government of Canada, 2015, 2017; Patel, 2017). Notably, the #MeToo and #TimesUp social movements have drawn increased attention and responses to sexual misconduct and sexual violence in homes, communities, and workplaces.

The use of RJ in cases of sexual violence, however, has been widely contested among activists, communities, scholars, and practitioners (Cossins, 2008; Daly, 2006; Hudson, 2002). Some of the concerns with using RJ in these instances include: safetyFootnote 2 (United Nations, 2006); the possibility of re-victimization (Rubin, 2000); the presence of power imbalances (see Busch, 2002; Daly & Stubbs, 2006; Rotenburg & Cotter, 2018; Strang & Braithwaite, 2002); and the perception of RJ being a lenient response to sexual violence (Archibald and Llewellyn, 2006; Wemmers, 2017).

Conversely, discussions among activists, communities, scholars, and practitioners also note that victims of sexual violence may be interested in having the opportunity to consider a RJ process noting that RJ can have positive results such as survivor healing, participation, satisfaction and empowerment (Daly and Stubbs, 2006; Meloy & Miller, 2011; Zinsstag and Keenan, 2017). RJ may also contribute to: holding offenders meaningfully accountable; enabling offenders to accept responsibility for harms caused; and providing an opportunity for offenders to hear and better understand the impact of their behaviour on victim(s)/others.

This annotated bibliography provides a comprehensive inventory and accessible summary of research and scholarly discussions on RJ in cases of adult sexual violence. The method used to search, retrieve, and annotate the articles is described below and is followed with a discussion of the limitations of the work. The annotated bibliography is organized into two main sections: 1) quantitative or qualitative assessments of RJ programs and their outcomes in cases of adult sexual violence, and 2) critical commentary and discussions.