Domestic Violence and Restorative Justice: Advancing the Dialogue, presented at

Interest in domestic violence work has been growing for many years in the restorative justice movement, particularly on an academic level. Resources and discussions that connected restorative justice and domestic violence were very few five years ago, but that is changing. Publications such as the collection Restorative Justice and Family Violence (ed. by Strang and Braithwaite), the multi-year consultations between restorative justice advocates, domestic violence workers and victims in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island, and the prevalence of domestic violence discussions at restorative justice conferences, are all reflections of this movement’s interest in exploring what restorative justice may have to offer, if anything, in cases of domestic violence. Yet, evidence of actual work in restorative processes with victims of domestic violence and their offenders has been scarce. Several possible scenarios may account for this. First, most restorative justice practitioners realize something of the seriousness and high risks of working in this area, but perhaps lack the resources to properly address themselves to the task, and therefore do not accept domestic violence cases. Second, interested practitioners may be constrained by legal or other gatekeepers who see more risk than benefit in ‘opening the door ’ to referring domestic violence cases to restorative justice programs. Third, it is clear that some of the work that is going on in this area has caused great harm (Busch, 2002; Coward, 2000) and this may cause some practitioners to want to close the door completely, understandably enough. Another scenario is that interested programs and practitioners may desire someone else’s ‘road map ’ to use as a guide on their own journey into this area. The Victim Offender Mediation (VOM) program of the Mediation and Restorativ