POLS 243 Restorative Justice

This course offers an introduction to restorative justice, including a consideration of competing definitions, historical origins, key principles, substantive practices, and future directions. To achieve this goal, students will study examples of restorative justice both domestically and globally. The course will be taught from an interdisciplinary perspective, encompassing historical, legal, political, philosophical, sociological, anthropological, and criminological considerations. The course will also interrogate the ways that existing retributive approaches function to perpetuate negative stereotypes and retribution against offenders, as a social category, complicating the process of reintegration.