NCJ Number
192172
Journal
Youth and Society Volume: 33 Issue: 2 Dated: December 2001 Pages: 227-248
Date Published
December 2001
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This article discusses restorative justice and how its healing process might contribute to drug treatment.
Abstract
Restorative justice focuses on repairing injustice. Drug abuse generates injustice in important ways. Restorative justice’s healing process might aid drug treatment because it can deliver the love and caring to motivate holistic change in a life. Case studies illustrate both how a restorative justice approach to drug abuse can be a catalyst for the confrontation of a profound community injustice and how confronting injustice can help tackle drug abuse. Most restorative justice programs currently fail to achieve either of these dynamics and ignore drug abuse. The criminalization of the harm caused by drug abuse through drug-related crime may be an effective way of reducing drug abuse when it prompts the use of well-designed processes of restorative justice. Future research and development should test this hypothesis. (Author abstract modified)