ABSTRACT
Since restorative governmentalities distinguish themselves from retributive approaches by appealing to different traditions and moral frameworks of justice, we are exhorted to adopt different moral frameworks of intelligibility. New conceptual lenses will, so the reasoning goes, allow us to replace an emphasis on retribution, coercion, guilt and punishment with one directed at healing the harms of criminal acts and repairing the damage caused (Zehr, 1990). Restorative justice also focuses on recovering victim voices as key definers of contextual harms, requires offenders to take responsibility for generating that harm, and expects communities to become actively involved in restitutively resolving the situation (see Johnstone, 2003). Allied values are espoused as pivotal: restoration, compassion, forgiveness, redemption, reparation, reintegration, empowerment, selfdetermination, respect, voluntarism, community strength, participation, peacemaking, harmony, and so on.1
