Conferencing and Restorative Justice

Estelle Zinsstag is a senior researcher working on the European FP7 research project ALTERNATIVE. She has joined the Leuven Institute of Criminology in 2008 first as an affiliate, and then as a project officer for the European Forum for Restorative Justice to lead a 2 year research project funded by the European Commission and entitled 'Conferencing: a way forward for restorative justice in Europe', which ended in 2011. She publishes in the areas of sexual violence, transitional justice and restorative justice.Inge Vanfraechem is project manager at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (KU Leuven, Belgium) of the European FP7 project ALTERNATIVE, which concerns security and restorative justice in intercultural settings. Previously, she has worked as a researcher at the National Institute of Criminal Sciences and Criminology (Ministry of Justice, Belgium) on the evaluation of national victim policy, and as a project coordinator with the European Forum for Restorative Justice on Victims and restorative justice. She publishes on restorative justice and victimology.

• 1. Conferencing: Setting the scene ; PART 1: CONFERENCING: BROADENING THE SCOPE OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICE ; 2. Conferencing: A developing restorative justice practice ; 3. The need for clarity about restorative justice conferences ; 4. Comparing conferencing and mediation: Some evaluation results internationally ; 5. 'That's how the light gets in': Facilitating restorative conferences ; 6. Conferencing and victims ; PART 2: CONFERENCING: INCEPTION, CHALLENGES, AND NEWER DEVELOPMENTS ; 7. Revolution, decline, and renewal: Restorative youth justice in New Zealand ; 8. Conferences and gendered violence: Practices, politics, and evidence ; 9. Decentralization and privatization: The promise and challenges of restorative justice in the United States ; 10. Conferencing in South America as an exercise of democracy? An exploration of the 'vertical' role of restorative justice ; PART 3: CONFERENCING: EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES ; 11. Conferencing in Northern Ireland: Implementing restorative justice at the core of the criminal justice system ; 12. Conferencing at the crossroads between rehabilitation and restorative justice ; 13. Restorative justice in the welfare state: Conferencing in the Nordic countries ; 14. Most things look better when arranged in a circle - Family Group Conferencing empowers societal developments in The Netherlands ; 15. Conferencing: Conclusions and way forward