Controversial and forward-thinking, this volume presents a much-needed analysis of restorative justice practices in cases of violence against women. Advocates, community activists, and scholars will find the theoretical perspectives and vivid case descriptions presented here to be invaluable tools for creating new ways for abused women to find justice.

Violence and injustice are two major political problems facing the world today. Offering a fresh, innovative analysis of the concept of violence, this book presents an original insight into the nature of injustice. Addressing three key questions, it forces us to rethink the scope and aims of a theory of social justice.

Beyond Violence: A Prevention Program for Women is a forty-hour, evidence-based, gender-responsive, trauma-informed treatment program specifically developed for women who have committed a violent crime and are incarcerated. This program offers counselors, mental health professionals, and program administrators the tools they need to implement a gender-responsive, trauma-informed treatment program within the criminal justice system. This Participant Workbook helps participants understand the relationships between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; learn new skills, including communication, conflict resolution, decision making, and calming soothing techniques; and become part of a group of women working to create a less violent world.

Gendered Justice takes a unique, multi-layered look at the various elements that factor into our understanding of domestic violence and how the criminal justice system handles situations of domestic violence. The book focuses primarily on the role of gender, but also considers socio-economic status, race, age, education, and the relationship between the victim and criminal. Illustrated with case studies throughout, the book introduces major themes, such as the social construction of gender and victimology, as well as topics such as the portrayal of intimate partner violence in the media and how it shapes our understanding of violence.

A law professor and former prosecutor reveals how inconsistent ideas about violence, enshrined in law, are at the root of the problems that plague our entire criminal justice system—from mass incarceration to police brutality. We take for granted that some crimes are violent and others aren’t. But how do we decide what counts as a violent act? David Alan Sklansky argues that legal notions about violence—its definition, causes, and moral significance—are functions of political choices, not eternal truths. And these choices are central to failures of our criminal justice system. The common distinction between violent and nonviolent acts, for example, played virtually no role in criminal law before the latter half of the twentieth century. Yet to this day, with more crimes than ever called “violent,” this distinction determines how we judge the seriousness of an offense, as well as the perpetrator’s debt and danger to society. Similarly, criminal law today treats violence as a pathology of individual character. But in other areas of law, including the procedural law that covers police conduct, the situational context of violence carries more weight. The result of these inconsistencies, and of society’s unique fear of violence since the 1960s, has been an application of law that reinforces inequities of race and class, undermining law’s legitimacy. A Pattern of Violence shows that novel legal philosophies of violence have motivated mass incarceration, blunted efforts to hold police accountable, constrained responses to sexual assault and domestic abuse, pushed juvenile offenders into adult prisons, encouraged toleration of prison violence, and limited responses to mass shootings. Reforming legal notions of violence is therefore an essential step toward justice.

Illuminates the threats Black women face and the lack of substantive public policy towards gendered violence Black women in marginalized communities are uniquely at risk of battering, rape, sexual harassment, stalking and incest. Through the compelling stories of Black women who have been most affected by racism, persistent poverty, class inequality, limited access to support resources or institutions, Beth E. Richie shows that the threat of violence to Black women has never been more serious, demonstrating how conservative legal, social, political and economic policies have impacted activism in the U.S.-based movement to end violence against women. Richie argues that Black women face particular peril because of the ways that race and culture have not figured centrally enough in the analysis of the causes and consequences of gender violence. As a result, the extent of physical, sexual and other forms of violence in the lives of Black women, the various forms it takes, and the contexts within which it occurs are minimized—at best—and frequently ignored. Arrested Justice brings issues of sexuality, class, age, and criminalization into focus right alongside of questions of public policy and gender violence, resulting in a compelling critique, a passionate re-framing of stories, and a call to action for change.

This 2002 book addresses one of the most controversial topics in restorative justice: its potential for dealing with conflicts within families. Most restorative justice programs specifically exclude family violence as an appropriate offence to be dealt with this way. This book focuses on the issues in family violence that may warrant special caution about restorative justice, in particular, feminist and indigenous concerns. At the same time it looks for ways of designing a place for restorative interventions that respond to these concerns. Further, it asks whether there are ways that restorative processes can contribute to reducing and preventing family violence, to healing its survivors and to confronting the wellsprings of this violence. The book discusses the shortcomings of the present criminal justice response to family violence. It suggests that these shortcomings require us to explore other ways of addressing this apparently intractable problem.