Restorative justice has become an important new way of thinking about crime, responsive regulation an influential way of thinking about business regulation.
In this volume, John Braithwaite brings together his important work on restorative justice with his work on business regulation to form a sweepingly novel picture of the way society regulates itself.
Braithwaite, internationally renowned for his work on restorative justice, has argued that restoring victims, offenders, and communities is more effective than punitive practices for deterring, incapacitating, and rehabilitating offenders. In this fascinating book, he reconceives responsive regulation as an approach to regulating any phenomenon.
Offering an original and incisive argument, he establishes the relevance of the business regulation literature on responsive regulation to the problem of crime and the relevance of the restorative justice literature on crime not only to business regulation but also to many of our biggest social and economic problems. These include the problems of war and peace, education, poverty, and sustainable development.
Braithwaite’s theories offer radically different ways of thinking about policies to confront these problems. They also propose a complete transformation of the legal system – from tort to tax – in accordance with the principles of restorative justice and responsive regulation. Braithwaite summarises a great deal of research evidence – from criminal justice in the case of restorative practices, from business in the case of responsive regulation – on how and why restorative justice and responsive regulation works in healing our biggest social problems. This book offers compelling arguments for a problem-solving approach to social ills, and challenges us to develop a legal system that works more efficiently and fairly with a morally decent approach to social problems of all stripes.