Restorative justice and practices in China

Restorative justice is developing robustly within the criminal justice system particularly in the field of juvenile justice. With the efforts devoted to policy development and intervention practices, activities at government and community levels suggest that restorative justice is emerging as an increasingly important element in mainstream criminal justice. Though restorative justice initiatives are one of the new initiatives for dealing with offending in many western countries, there has been relatively little experience of actual use of restorative practices in controlling juvenile offending and criminal justice intervention in China. In this paper, we first describe key themes of restorative justice and practices. We then highlight how restorative justice and practices been operated in the present juvenile justice in China. Finally, we discuss the way ahead for the development of restorative justice.