Introduction: Comparative Restorative Justice

The introduction aims to provide the context for the book’s topic of comparative restorative justice by meeting three objectives. First, it puts three common denominators between comparative criminal and restorative justice in a historical continuum. Without understanding the journey that has led us talking about comparative restorative justice today, we run the risk of seeing its emerging study only partially. Second, the chapter attempts to define comparative restorative justice using a consensual conceptual model. Subsequently, it presents six comparators within restorative justice. The chapter argues that they have been presented in the extant literature in the form of faultlines, when, in reality, they are merely comparative expressions of the diverse restorative justice norm and practice. These comparative axes have been missed in research and policy analysis. This misdirection can only be addressed and our understanding and implementation of restorative justice can only be improved, if the study of comparative restorative justice is further developed. The chapter claims that this volume takes the first collective step towards this direction, as its various contributions provide context for these comparative axes within the restorative justice field and study.