Overview

Restorative Justice(s) practices invoke or reconstruct tradition, but also stem from the experience and social innovation, in which the state criminal system(s) admit, for some situations and types of criminality, a plurality of social responses of a non-punitive nature, because they depend on the will of the victim or because they allow finding solutions of consensus and opportunity, inside or outside the judicial processes, opting for reparation by agreement, avoiding cases where punishment entails more disadvantages than benefits for victims, offenders and society. Does this paradigm of consensual resolution of conflicts results from a transformation and humanization of punishment? Or, on the contrary, is it a way of extending forms of social control?

This seminar intends to question the importance of so-called Restorative Justice in the punitive systems of each State and Society, through theoretical reflection and analysis of a plurality of institutional and community experiences in Brazil, Mozambique, Portugal and Timor-Leste.