‘Restorative justice’ as a recognised term is relatively new, being first used in the mid 1990’s however the principles are ancient and can be first traced back to the Old Testament laws from Exodus. Here we see one of the most overused and misunderstood lines in biblical history – the pronouncement of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…..’. On closer reading what can actually be understood is that the response to harm should be equal. In modern terms we might say ‘no more or less than an eye for an eye’. God was telling the people of Israel that they should be fair and just in dealing with harm and that where harm was done the offender should repair that harm, either with an identical repayment or to the same level. These themes were expanded in the teachings of Jesus and form the basis of what we now recognise as the main principles and themes of restorative practices; forgiveness, healing, reparation for harm, accountability, mercy and compassion.

The old testament law was adopted in one form or another by many cultures and nations and indeed founds the basis of English law where the principal of ‘proportionality’ still remains, although in our punitive culture this tends to be rephrased as ‘the punishment should fit the crime’. In the Anglo Saxon times most matters were dealt with in a similar way to those Old Testament ways. If a man stole a pig and ate it he would either need to replace the pig or do a piece of work for the victim to make reparation. In 1066 England was invaded by the Normans and the new King – William the Conqueror; found that his coffers were empty. In an ingenious move he decreed that from then on when a offence was committed the crime would also be against ‘the Crown’ and that a fine would be levied. Restorative practices then entered a very dark time where the satisfaction of the victim became secondary to the satisfaction of the ‘Crown’ and punitive justice held sway. Sadly that situation was mirrored across many parts of the globe for over 900 years. Restorative practices didn’t die out entirely however and some tribal cultures – notably the Maori’s of New Zealand and the Aborigines of Australia continued to deal with harm within their communities in this way.

In the late 1980’s various people in New Zealand started to look at how the ancient practices could be used in a modern setting and in 1989 the Youth Justice Act introduced Family Group Conferencing (FGC) for dealing with young people who had offended. In 2000, the Restorative Justice Trust piloted ‘restorative conferencing’ in serious adult offender cases brought before Aukland’s Waitakere District Court. Elements of the FGC were picked up and adapted by an Australian Police Officer Terry O’Connell, who together with Macdonald and Moore developed a ‘script’ for conferencing which would ensure consistency and the neutrality of the conference facilitators.

This time period saw the emergence of a new wave of restorative practices being developed across the globe from Canadian sentencing circles, the Winnipeg Restorative Resolutions project and in the use of mediation in the Austrian youth justice system. By the mid 1990’s Thames Valley Police in the UK had started to use Restorative Conferencing in the way that they dealt with certain offences. Much of the credit for the re-integration of restorative themes and practices into the English and Welsh Youth Justice system must go to Sir Charles Pollard, the then Chief Constable of Thames Valley. Sir Charles’s near evangelical fervour for the benefits of RJ convinced many and carried a fairly hefty political punch, so that when the Labour party were elected to power their first piece of serious legislation – the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, would for the first time in 930 years enshrine restorative practices in law. The churches were not been silent either with many organisations successfully campaigning for restorative practices to be re-introduced into their countries justice and systems.

In the last 5 years the pace of change has not slackened with many organisations re-introducing RJ. In the UK this has included the Youth Justice System, schools and problem solving in major businesses. To date this re-introduction has not yet impacted on the mainstream Christian church where the use of those original biblical principles has continued to be largely forgotten or ignored.