Restorative justice and organizational change: The process of transformation

Restorative justice has come to the forefront of criminal justice discourse with growing interest and support. Despite increasing research and theory in the past decade, a missing link in the research has been a lack of focus on the role of criminal justice organizations in the implementation process. The purpose of this paper is to examine the capacity of organizational literature to inform criminal justice system organizational transformation so that it is consistent with the values, principles and practices associated with restorative justice. The literature review involves an overview of the restorative justice framework, a general presentation of organizational theory, and finally, an articulation of three main categories of organizational literature: bureaucratic, post-bureaucratic, and what is referred to in this thesis as contemporary. This literature analysis contributes to the development of a model for an organization that is consistent with restorative justice and the proposed transition from a bureaucratic organization to a restorative organization. Finally, both evaluative and policy implications for the research findings and proposed model are considered.