Restorative Justice and Transformative Justice

Restorative Justice and Transformative Justice are two different, but intersecting movements that

both seek a non-punitive response to harm. Despite their distinct origin stories and intersecting

aims, the two movements are often confused as the same thing or as two movements operating

against each other. In their article “Growing Justice”, social worker and educator Cameron

Rasmussen and director of the Ahimsa Collective Sonya Shah clarify some of the

misconceptions about the relationship between Restorative Justice (RJ) and Transformative

Justice (TJ). This article summarizes some of their key points, and analyzes the potential for both

RJ and TJ to end the harms of state violence.

Rasmussen and Shah believe that ignoring RJ and TJ’s distinct origin stories hinders the

collective effort to “challenge punishment, violence, and domination”. The authors cite two RJ

paradigms to help explain the modern RJ movement. The first is the Indigenous paradigm, and it

recognizes and centers the understanding that Indigenous communities have been practicing

“justice as embedded in a holistic worldview in which justice and wellbeing are inextricably

tied” long before the term “restorative justice” was created by the Western world. In the U.S. in

the 1970s, scholars and practitioners began to form the Western paradigm. RJ in the Western

paradigm understands punishment as harmful, but its predominantly white, upper class founders

mistakenly believed that a restorative approach to justice could flourish in the punitive Western

carceral state. Additionally, the Western paradigm has historically not always centered

Indigenous Peacemaking as the origin of RJ practice. Because the whiteness of the Western RJ

movement has driven historical negligence of RJ’s indigenous roots and a practice of partnership

with prosecutors and criminal courts, many see RJ as “co-opted, colonized, or misaligned with

the aims of social movements seeking liberation”.

TJ was born out of the anti-violence movement in the late 1990s and led “primarily by

Black women, women of color, domestic and sexual violence survivors, and queer communities,

many of whom were survivors of violence.” Because the founders understood interpersonal

violence is always situated in structural and state violence, abolition and an approach to justice

outside of the state is inherent in the TJ. Although TJ has drawn on RJ’s approach to achieving

justice by nourishing relationships through healing and care, TJ believes at its core that

“addressing interpersonal harm without addressing systemic harm will always be insufficient.”

By drawing on the teachings of each other, RJ and TJ have the potential to help each other

grow the larger movement towards justice outside of the carceral state. Rasmussen and Shah

describe how over the last 50 years, RJ has evolved from a social service within the criminal

justice system to a social movement that advocates for a larger justice paradigm shift committed

to structural change and racial justice. The TJ movement has shaped the RJ movement, as many

RJ organizations now affirm RJ’s inability to heal interpersonal harm without uplifting

Indigenous Peacemaking and demanding prison abolition and structural transformation.

tools RJ uses to address harm without punishment can aid the organizing initiative of TJ by

helping balance its “political and relational commitments”.

Rasmussen and Shah do a beautiful job in showing how at their best, RJ and TJ can

collaborate towards the collective goal of placing justice into the hands of people and their

communities as opposed to the state. This collaboration will not work if RJ movements do not

consistently and explicitly uplift Indigenous voices and respect the movement’s Indigenous

origins, and work towards abolition of the carceral state.