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Abstract

Restorative justice (RJ) is frequently promoted as a redress for the overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in criminal justice systems and as a culturally appropriate alternative to state-based responses to offending. Advocates often characterize RJ as inspired by, or continuous with, Indigenous justice practices, and international scholarship has increasingly framed RJ as a “potentially” decolonizing practice. This paper challenges those claims in the context of Australia and New Zealand, arguing RJ is not well positioned to reduce overrepresentation or address broader injustices of criminal justice for Indigenous Peoples and communities. More than this, RJ may function as an impediment to more fundamental legislative, policy, and institutional changes. Our analysis identifies three interrelated problems: (a) dispossessive histories and ideologies underpinning claims of RJ's “indigeneity”; (b) RJ's entrenchment within the bureaucratic architecture of state criminal justice systems; and (c) the reproduction of colonial logics that obscure or sideline Indigenous struggles for sovereignty and self-determination. We conclude that efforts to “decolonize” RJ in Australia and New Zealand are not tenable within its current uses. Instead, RJ advocates must confront its limits and engage with Indigenous calls for justice that center sovereignty, land, and treaty as foundations for meaningful change.

Keywords

restorative justice decolonization Indigenous Peoples Australia New Zealand

Introduction

Over the last four decades, activists and scholars have given sustained attention to the harmful impacts of criminal justice practices on Indigenous Peoples in settler-colonial states. These critiques form part of longer histories of anti-colonial thought and social movements confronting colonization, dispossession, and state violence. The more recent development of “decolonizing” criminology is thus not new but reflects an intensifying focus on the intersection of colonization and structural racism, and the search for alternatives—or mitigations—to state justice systems.

This body of work addresses problems in criminological research, criminal justice, and corresponding attempts at justice reform that often reproduce colonial relations, especially in the context of settler colonial states (Agozino, 2003; Blagg & Anthony, 2019; Cunneen & Tauri, 2016; Jackson, 1988; Kitossa, 2012; Smith, 2021). However, decolonizing initiatives are far from homogenous, reflecting distinct cultural and political experiences and struggles. Nevertheless, across settler-colonial states, certain patterns recur, most strikingly the massive overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in prisons and other criminal justice institutions (ABS, 2023; Carson & Kluckow, 2023; Office of the Correctional Investigator, 2023; Stats NZ, 2025). One response frequently promoted as a remedy to these systemic injustices is restorative justice (RJ).

Since the early 1990s, RJ has often been characterized by advocates as either inspired by, or directly continuous with, Indigenous justice practices (e.g., Bradshaw & Roseborough, 2005b; Braithwaite, 1996; Strang, 2017; Umbreit et al., 2005; Van Ness, 2005; Zehr, 2002). Advocates argue these forums can be effective in reducing overrepresentation while providing more culturally appropriate responses to offending and victimization (Bradshaw & Roseborough, 2005a; Cunha, 1999; Kelly, 2002; Yi & Foley, 2014; Zehr, 2015). Such claims have influenced policy in Australia and New Zealand and are echoed in Canada (Griffiths, 1996; Milward, 2008), the United States (Gray & Lauderdale, 2007; Reed, 2023), and international scholarship, where RJ is increasingly framed as a decolonizing or “potentially” decolonizing practice (e.g., Asadullah, 2021; Hansen, 2014; Said, 2022; Zehr, 2015).

This article challenges those claims. We argue that, in Australia and New Zealand, RJ is not well positioned to address overrepresentation and other forms of injustice in criminal justice policies and practices. Moreover, we argue RJ may be prohibitive to more fundamental changes in legislation, policy, and practice required to mitigate such overrepresentation and corresponding forms of bifurcated social control and justice system harms to Indigenous Peoples. Our focus on these two countries reflects not just their proximity, but their shared genealogy of RJ as a “top down” mechanism, in both its design and delivery, administered by state institutions or state-sanctioned providers (Daly, 2002; Tauri, 2022; Wood et al., 2024).

We note at the outset it is not our intent to try and “decolonize” RJ. On the contrary, we set forth several problems as to why such a project is not tenable within current predominant uses of RJ in both countries. This set of problems can be defined as: (a) dispossessive histories and ideologies related to the purported “indigeneity” of RJ, (b) within its entrenchment in criminal justice systems in Australia and New Zealand, and (c) its reliance on Eurocentric epistemologies of crime and responses to wrongdoing.

Following these problems, we make three contributions to emerging literature and claims of RJ as a potentially decolonizing practice. First, we show that claims about the “indigeneity” of RJ in Australia and New Zealand operate within longer histories of dispossession and appropriation that privilege state-centered responses to crime while sidelining long-standing Indigenous calls for self-determination. Second, we demonstrate how RJ's bureaucratic entrenchment across policing, referrals, courts, and corrections constrains—and in places subverts—its capacity to function as a decolonizing practice. Third, we show that beyond problems in positivist measures of “success” for Indigenous Peoples and communities, the design and delivery of RJ utilize Eurocentric responses to offending that individualize harms, privilege state-managed dialogue over iwi/whānau/kin authority, presume “reintegration” into a settler polity; and translate tikanga and collective responsibility into bureaucratic procedure. The resulting horizon of change is thus one of accommodation within state logics rather than increased self-determination and sovereignty.

The paper proceeds by reviewing RJ's development in Australia and New Zealand. We then examine problems of dispossession, entrenchment, and Eurocentrism. We conclude with reflections on the limits of RJ as a decolonizing strategy and on how RJ advocates might better position themselves as allies in Indigenous efforts toward self-determination.

Restorative Justice in Australia and New Zealand

Advocates often claim RJ has always existed within Indigenous societies. We disagree. For our purposes, the history of RJ in New Zealand begins in 1989 with the introduction of family group conferencing (FGC) under the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act (CYPTFA, 1989), and in Australia in 1991 with the Wagga Wagga youth restorative conferencing pilot.

This demarcation reflects the definitional challenges surrounding RJ. The literature is marked by longstanding debates over what counts as “restorative” (Daly, 2016; Wood & Suzuki, 2016). For purposes of our analysis, however, we concur with Daly's (2016, p. 21 emphasis in the original) more recent definition of RJ as:

a contemporary justice mechanism to address crime, disputes, and bounded community conflict. The mechanism is a meeting (or several meetings) of affected individuals, facilitated by one or more impartial people. Meetings can take place at all phases of the criminal process— prearrest, diversion from court, presentence, and postsentence—as well as for offending or conflicts not reported to the police.

We extend “meeting” to include dialogue-driven processes such as shuttle mediation and note in both countries RJ practices as a response to criminal offending largely align with this definition. Most prominently, in Australia and New Zealand, RJ has taken the form of conferencing, alongside victim-offender mediation (VOM) and, to a lesser extent, sentencing circles.

We exclude consideration of Indigenous sentencing courts, as well as forms of therapeutic jurisprudence. While sometimes described as “restorative,” these are better understood as problem-solving courts, where decision-making power ultimately rests with magistrates (Daly & Marchetti, 2012). By focusing on practices that conform to Daly's definition, we resist maximalist conceptions of RJ not in terms of their potential merit, but because of the high degree and prevalence of its institutionalized uses within criminal justice systems of both countries.

In Australia and New Zealand, RJ is largely a response to youth offending. While adult referrals have expanded in New Zealand (Shank, 2021), use for adults in Australia remains marginal. With a few exceptions, which we discuss below, RJ programs are designed and delivered by the state or state-sanctioned service providers.

The Restorative Embrace of “Indigenous” Justice

Early experiments often identified as the origins of RJ in the 1970s—such as the Kitchener, Ontario program—grew from a broader set of “informal justice” initiatives that responded to social and political upheavals of the 1960s to 1970s. Civil rights, feminist, Indigenous, and non-violence movements, together with community mediation and alternative dispute resolution projects, challenged highly bureaucratic justice processes which, in the context of criminal justice often targeted minorities, offered few genuine rehabilitative opportunities for offenders, and neglected or re-victimized victims (Cappelletti, 1993; Immarigeon & Daly, 1997; Thompson & DuBow, 1995).

In this context, Victim–Offender Reconciliation Programs (VORPs) emerged in several Canadian provinces and US states, later evolving into VOM in the 1980s (Armour, 2012). These initiatives were grassroots, and most functioned as diversionary approaches for young people, although in some US states VORPs were used as an alternative to incarceration for adults (Zehr & Umbreit, 1982). The involvement of Mennonite and other religious organizations committed to nonviolence and prison abolition played an important role in aligning some early RJ approaches to social justice issues (National Council of Churches, 1979; Noakes-Duncan, 2016).

However, prior to the 1990s, there was little interest or focus on Indigenous justice issues, or on conceptualizing forms of Indigenous justice as a type of RJ. The earliest example we could locate was an article by Patenaude (1989) that sought to identify and illustrate aspects of traditional Inuit justice as a form of RJ, although there may be earlier examples we were not able to locate.

This changed substantially in the 1990s, however, for several reasons. First, advocates like Van Ness (1993) and Zehr (1990) began to describe RJ as an “ancient” or “traditional” form of justice, said to have been the norm in most societies until the modern state displaced it. This reframing provided cultural depth and authenticity to a movement otherwise seen as experimental up to that point (see Richards, 2006).

Second, Braithwaite's (1989) Crime, Shame, and Reintegration provided an important theoretical buttress for early RJ approaches. In his development of reintegrative shaming, Braithwaite compared “individualistic” and “communitarian” responses to crime and wrongdoing, arguing the latter tend to do a better job at controlling crime through informal mechanisms of social control. He also argued such societies provide clearer ways for wrongdoers to make amends, regain respect, and reintegrate into their communities. Specific to the development of RJ, Braithwaite argued western responses to offending could benefit from deliberate attempts to address crime through “reintegrative” approaches more common to communitarian societies that identify and shame wrongful behaviors, but uphold the potential goodness of the wrongdoer and provide clearer ways for them to make amends and redeem themselves.

Third, New Zealand implemented FGC as part of its substantial changes to its youth and child welfare systems in the 1989 Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act (1989). The FGC was developed in part from sustained Māori criticism of the overincarceration of Māori rangatahi (young people) in youth justice facilities, as well as the common practice of removing rangatahi from their whānau (families) in cases of child care and protection (Jackson, 1988; Love, 2017). While some Māori organizations and iwi (tribes) were consulted in the redesign of youth justice, their primary concerns were not in the development of the FGC (Lupton & Nixon, 1999). Rather, the FGC was developed by policymakers and Pākehā (white) social workers as a mechanism to reduce the number of young people in custody, increase the use of diversion, and return more decision-making back to whānau (Doolan, 1990, 2003; Wilcox et al., 1991). Notably, the FGC was not developed as an explicitly restorative practice. However, RJ advocates from Europe and the US recognized similarities between the FGC and VORPS/VOMs, in particular the inclusion of victims in FGC meetings, and within a few years the FGC was being defined as a type of “restorative” practice (e.g., Umbreit & Zehr, 1996; Wachtel, 1995).

In redefining the FGC as a type of restorative practice, many advocates also began to claim this approach was rooted in Māori justice. In the decade or so following the 1989 Act, the FGC was widely heralded by policymakers and RJ advocates as a type of Māori justice, or informed by traditional Māori practices (e.g., Bazemore, 2000; Consedine, 1995; Cunha, 1999; Maxwell & Morris, 2010; McElrea, 1994; Umbreit & Zehr, 1996), with some going so far as to call these “Māori conferences” (McCold, 2000).

This absorption of the FGC into a type of “Indigenous” or “traditional” justice was useful for RJ advocates and also policymakers in New Zealand. For advocates, beset with problems of legitimization and marginal uses of RJ in Europe and North America, the FGC represented a clear example of the use of a “restorative” practice at a systematic level in the youth justice system in New Zealand (Bazemore, 2000; Umbreit & Zehr, 1996). For policymakers in New Zealand, beset with decades of Māori criticism and activism around a broad range of issues, the FGC presented a visible reform that signaled responsiveness to Māori criticism while still retaining state authority (Tauri, 1998, 2022).¹

The FGC model was quickly exported to Australia, beginning with the 1991 Wagga Wagga pilot, which blended FGC practices with Braithwaite's reintegrative shaming (Bargen, 1996). By the late 1990s, conferencing was legislated across most Australian states and territories. As in New Zealand, these were top-down initiatives, initially framed around diversion but also victim inclusion. Unlike New Zealand, however, early initiatives in Australia were not focused on goals of reducing Indigenous overrepresentation. Rather, such goals were later bolted on as youth conferencing began to be expanded. For example, the literature on the Wagga Wagga pilot project makes little mention of reducing Indigenous overrepresentation as a goal. However, this pilot program was revised and expanded statewide in New South Wales in the Young Offenders Act (1997), which noted the goal of “address[ing] the over representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the criminal justice system through the use of youth justice conferences, cautions and warnings.”

Restorative Justice and Dispossession

In our analysis, it is first necessary to confront advocates’ claims that RJ practices are rooted in or reflective of Aboriginal, Māori, or Torres Strait Islander forms of justice or responses to wrongdoing.

In the last three decades, there have been numerous critiques of cultural appropriation by RJ advocates of Indigenous justice views and practices in Australia and New Zealand. These include tokenism (Cunneen, 2012; Moyle, 2014), inappropriate uses of customary protocols and practices (Moyle & Tauri, 2016), and problems of “window dressing” RJ without appropriate Elders (Australia) or Kaumātua (New Zealand) that would otherwise be expected to play a primary role in responding to wrongdoing (Cunneen, 1997; Love, 2017; Moyle, 2014; Strang, 2001; Tauri, 2022).

In the case of RJ, problems of appropriation are more than mischaracterization or misrepresentation. Such appropriation has also tended to homogenize diverse and distinct Indigenous views of justice and responses to wrongdoing under an “orientalist” assumption that conferencing style approaches to RJ are equally applicable or amenable to all Indigenous communities (Blagg, 1997; Blagg & Anthony, 2019; Daly, 2002; Richards, 2006; Vieille, 2013). As Tauri (2014) has documented, the purported “Māori” elements of the FGC in particular have regularly been packaged and sold as “Indigenous” RJ to other countries and global regions, largely by non-indigenous entrepreneurs.

Such appropriation reflects a type of theft in the use of “indigeneity” to legitimize or even sell RJ products developed and implemented by non-indigenous people. However, there is also a deeper and more systemic form of theft in what Nichols (2018) calls “dispossession.” For Nichols, in the context of settler-colonial states, dispossession is more than an act of stealing land, place, or culture. Rather, dispossession represents “a unique historical process, one in which property is generated under conditions that require its divestment and alienation from those who appear, only retrospectively, as its original owners” (Nichols, 2018, p. 5).²

This concept of dispossession is useful in explicating what we might call “the justice that never was.” Here, RJ takes the form of a retroactive production of cultural “property” by the state in the form of Indigenous “ownership” of justice. Like other aspects of dispossession under colonization, however, the return of such “property” is often more legal fiction than fact. A clear corollary can be found in Native land titles, where in most cases land is “returned” to its Indigenous owners for symbolic or cultural uses, but not as real property.³ In similar ways, Indigenous Peoples have been given their “justice” back through RJ, albeit in ways that remain fully under the auspices of the state and Crown law.⁴

Whose Conflicts? What Property?

This thin veneer of ownership becomes clearer when set alongside Nils Christie's (1977) concept of “conflicts as property.” Christie argued that modern states usurp conflicts from the people most directly involved in lieu of a professional class of judges, lawyers, and other professionals who manage these conflicts in the interest of the state. He argued for a type of “reclaiming” of such conflicts by laypersons, and suggested several possibilities for how this might happen, including meetings between those most directly impacted by their own conflicts. Christie's article has been foundational to the theoretical justification of RJ as a means of affording people more opportunity to “own” their conflicts such as the impacts of crime and directly participate in justice outcomes that better meet their needs and interests.

While research confirms that restorative processes can enhance individual decision-making, here such conflicts are largely reframed as interpersonal harms caused by offenders to victims (Wood & Suzuki, 2020). Yet this promise looks very different for Indigenous Peoples in Australia and New Zealand. The deeper conflicts—those between Indigenous Peoples and the state, rooted in colonization and systemic overrepresentation—are erased and replaced with state-managed forms of dialogue-driven conflict resolution. Moreover, unlike well-known cases of Navajo and other uses of RJ by Indigenous Peoples in North America (e.g., Yazzie, 1996), in Australia and New Zealand there is no equivalent to tribal law. There are no separate jurisdictions for Aboriginals, Māori, or Torres Strait Islanders, and in this respect, decidedly few examples of indigenously designed and delivered responses to offending and victimization. This point is generally ignored by RJ scholars who regularly group North American, Australasian, and sometimes African and South American Indigenous “restorative” practices together with little consideration of the distinct political and legal frameworks in which these may operate.

Rather, in the case of RJ as a response to criminal offending in Australia and New Zealand, such conflicts are generally reduced to individualistic ones between victims and offenders. The Crown retains purview of how such conflicts are addressed, and ultimate authority over any decisions or outcomes that result from restorative meetings. As such, there is little current possibility in the use of most types of RJ to recognize or involve collective “ownership” of conflicts, as is customary under traditional dispute resolution and responses to wrongdoing for Indigenous Peoples in both countries (Behrendt, 2002; Devere et al., 2017; Grose, 1995; Pringle, 1996), for example in traditional Māori hui (meetings) where whānau or hapū (sub-tribe) may take collective ownership and responsibility for the wrongdoing of one of its members (Jackson, 1988; Vieille, 2013).

In Australia and New Zealand, a sleight of hand thus occurs in the proposition that RJ provides a better way for Indigenous Peoples and communities to “own” their conflicts, when the very property undergirding their ability to effectively address offending and resolve conflicts has been stolen or systematically fractured. Here we do not just mean land and place, although these are vital. We mean more broadly what sociologists call “collective efficacy,” which occurs when communities have shared values and goals, and the ability to achieve these goals collectively. The sleight of hand that occurs is one of dispossession, where Indigenous Peoples’ conflicts with the state are erased and sublimated into western, bureaucratic justice mechanisms developed by government, and then returned to Indigenous Peoples as their own “property” from which to solve their crime problems.

This brings us to our final point about RJ as ownership of conflict. Conceptualizing the “property” of conflict as something to be “owned” in conferences or other RJ mechanisms ignores the reality of gross overrepresentation as conflict of a decidedly political kind. As used in Australia and New Zealand, RJ has little capacity to redress such conflicts. Rather, measures of success and “effectiveness” of RJ programs tend to be limited to outcomes such as reoffending or victim satisfaction.

While such outcomes are often vital to those that directly participate in RJ as individuals, they may also function to ideologically supplant goals of equity with those of formal equality. In the context of the United States, Patricia Williams (1991, p. 48) identified an “interpretative shift” in seminal court rulings in post-segregationist American courts toward defining equality as a type of legal “neutrality.” This has also been a commonly used approach by policymakers and courts in Australia and New Zealand following the overturning of formal segregation and disenfranchisement in areas of criminal justice, tort, health, education, employment, and social services (Allison, 2020; Anthony, 2016; Behrendt, 2002; Cunneen, 1992; de Plevitz, 2000; Marchetti & Ransley, 2005; Moore, 2012; Watego et al., 2021; Whata, 2020). The legal fiction of equality, in this regard, relegates colonization and segregation to historical events of the past, supplants these with measures and metrics focused on equality of treatment and provision of services under the law, and sublimates ongoing impacts of colonization in lieu of the mantra “equal justice for all.” As Moana Jackson (1989, p. 31) has argued, however, in the context of Māori (but equally relevant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders), “When the analysis of law is founded in the belief that ‘one law for all’ means ‘one process for all’ rather than ‘one resultant justice for all’, the debate becomes confined by monocultural strangulation.”

Entrenchment in the Criminal Justice System

The second difficulty in “decolonizing” RJ lies not only in its appropriation of Indigenous justice but in its entrenchment within existing criminal justice systems. As we argued in the previous section, RJ often functions as a type of dispossession for Indigenous Peoples, returning justice only in symbolic or constrained ways. This becomes even clearer when examining how RJ is embedded in policing, referral processes, courts, and corrections. Designed as an innovative justice mechanism within these structures, RJ cannot be easily separated from the very institutions that sustain Indigenous overrepresentation. Although a fuller examination is needed, here we sketch key evidence of how this entrenchment undermines claims that RJ offers potential for “decolonization.”

Policing

As used as a response to offending, RJ in Australia and New Zealand only comes into play once an offense has been identified, leaving investigation and fact-finding to the police (Daly, 2016). Given the role and discretion of the police in identifying and deciding how to respond to potential criminal acts, there are two implications for the use of RJ as a potentially “decolonizing” justice mechanism.

First, Indigenous Peoples are subject to systematic over-policing in both Australia (Blagg et al., 2005; Cunneen, 1990, 2020; Sentas & Pandolfini, 2017; Walsh, 2007, 2017; Weatherburn & Thomas, 2023) and New Zealand (Department of Corrections, 2007; Independent Panel, 2024; JustSpeak, 2020; Norris & Tauri, 2021). This differential enforcement is a major driver of Indigenous overrepresentation in the criminal justice system, as repeatedly documented in inquiries and commissions, most notably the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Reports (1991) in Australia, and Moana Jackson's (1988) seminal two-volume report The Māori and the Criminal Justice System in New Zealand. Because RJ mechanisms only come into play once people are brought into the system, they cannot address the structural harms created at this first point of contact. In this sense, the potential of RJ as a decolonizing justice mechanism is undermined from the outset.

Second, diversionary approaches such as conferencing, cautions, and (in New Zealand) Police Youth Aid are often promoted as remedies for Indigenous overrepresentation, especially among youth offenders (Cunneen et al., 2021; Wood & Tauri, 2025). Diversionary programs should, in principle, help to reduce Indigenous overrepresentation. In practice, however, research shows Indigenous Peoples are simultaneously over-policed and under-diverted. They are more frequently referred into diversion for minor offenses than non-indigenous peers (Allard et al., 2010; Loh & Ferrante, 2000; Maxwell et al., 2002; Savage et al., 2021; Snowball, 2008). At the same time, they are more likely to be referred to court than to receive diversion for similar offenses as non-indigenous people (Allard et al., 2010; Cunneen, 2006; Cunneen et al., 2021; Department of Corrections, 2007; Little et al., 2018; Maxwell et al., 2002; Papalia et al., 2019; Richards, 2010; Snowball, 2008). The result is that more Indigenous Peoples are drawn into the system for the same conduct, but fewer receive the benefits of diversionary responses, including restorative options (Cunneen et al., 2021). Far from decolonizing justice, RJ in this context operates within a policing framework that entrenches inequality and injustice.

Restorative Justice Program Evaluation

A second issue is evaluations of RJ programs that have consistently documented significant problems for Indigenous Peoples in both Australia and New Zealand. In her report for the Australian Criminological Research Council, Strang (2001) highlighted recurring failures: minimal engagement with Elders and respected stakeholders, limited Indigenous involvement in program design or staffing, inadequate attention to cultural difference, and reluctance by police to refer Indigenous participants to RJ processes (see also Blagg, 2001; Cunneen, 1997). In a subsequent report for the Australian Institute of Criminology, Joudo-Larsen (2014, p. 31) concluded many of the problems identified by Strang remained unresolved. Indeed, far from improving, more recent studies suggest these shortcomings persist or have deepened (Cunneen et al., 2021; Price et al., 2025).

New Zealand evaluations reveal similar shortcomings. Although advocates promoted the FGC as a culturally responsive process for Māori youth and their whānau, early studies found only about 5% were held on marae or involved the young person's iwi (Levine, 2000). Since this time, governmental reports on the FGC have noted widespread problems in the delivery and availability of FGCs for Māori, including lack of knowledge and attention to tikanga (Māori protocols and customs of social interaction and demonstration of respect) by service providers, lack of funding and appropriate resourcing, and dissatisfaction of the FGC process by Māori participants (Becroft, 2017; Ministry of Social Development, 2012). In a critical report from the Children's Commissioner, Judge Andrew Becroft (2017, p. 17) noted:

The vision [of FGCs] was to meaningfully embed a tikanga Māori approach, but the State has failed to prioritise hapū and iwi involvement. Practice is inconsistent, resourcing is generally inadequate, and there is insufficient whānau and wider family at FGCs and insufficient consideration to identifying and inviting hapū and iwi to attend.

Māori scholars and practitioners have echoed these concerns, pointing to tokenism and a lack of attention even to basic cultural protocols (Love, 2017; Moyle, 2014; Moyle & Tauri, 2016).

Co-Collaboration With Indigenous Communities

Only a small number of RJ initiatives in Australia and New Zealand have involved collaboration with Indigenous communities in their design or delivery. Most programs have been short-term, underfunded, and rarely evaluated, leaving little published evidence of their impact. Notable exceptions include the Mornington Island and Aurukun Restorative Justice Projects in Queensland, and in New Zealand, the Rangatahi Youth Courts and Iwi Justice Panels.

The Mornington Island Restorative Justice Project began in 2008 as a partnership between government, community members, and Elders from the Lardil, Kaiadilt, and Yungkal nations. It aimed to address escalating conflicts, alcohol misuse, and petrol-sniffing. Evaluation of the program (Venables, 2012) reported positive outcomes, including strengthened trust and relationships, greater involvement of Indigenous stakeholders, and successful resolutions in 95% of the 157 mediations conducted. At the same time, the evaluation identified key limitations: mediation was rarely used as a diversion from the justice system, referral rates were low in cases where court contact could have been avoided, and systemic disadvantages—particularly the prevalence of alcohol use—continued to drive court appearances. Nonetheless, subsequent analyses show the Project fostered relatively high levels of engagement and consensus among Indigenous families and Elders regarding the design and implementation of restorative mechanisms (Brigg et al., 2018; Brunton, 2014; Price et al., 2025; Venables, 2012).⁵

Building on the perceived successes of Mornington Island, the Queensland government attempted to replicate the model in the Wik community of Aurukun. Evaluations, however, show that this did not occur as intended. Although there was initial collaboration with community members, the development of a sustainable “Aurukun peacemaking model” was not realized by the time of the final evaluation in 2017 (Limerick, 2017). The project delivered 270 mediations, but only 13 involved victims, highlighting limited alignment with restorative principles. Despite early promise, the initiative ultimately struggled due to unrealistic government expectations of rapid implementation, insufficient community ownership, and the absence of long-term structures to embed restorative practices (Price et al., 2025).

In New Zealand, the government introduced Ngā Kōti Rangatahi (Rangatahi Youth Courts) in 2008 in response to the ongoing shortcomings of the FGC and the persistent overrepresentation of Māori youth. Sixteen Rangatahi Courts now operate across the country, held on marae and designed to increase Māori youth, family, and community engagement with the justice system. These courts follow Māori cultural practices (kawa) but remain embedded within the youth court structure and legislation and are therefore not separate courts for Māori.

Early government-sponsored evaluations reported high levels of respect and engagement from whānau, stronger cultural connection, and strengthened relationships between rangatahi, whānau, marae, and court professionals (Davies et al., 2012). Other evaluations have been less positive. Waititi (2012) reported some young people's experiences with the FGC process were adversarial and more akin to conventional youth court than to a marae. Blank-Penetito et al. (2021, p. 160) reported similar findings, with one participant noting, “Oh, this is just like adult court. Like no real difference there.” Dickson (2011) further noted problems when rangatahi were referred to marae with which they had no whakapapa, undermining the cultural integrity and genealogical connections central to Māori justice practices.

A further initiative to enhance Māori engagement with the criminal justice system has been the introduction of Iwi Justice Panels. First piloted in Christchurch in 2010, the program was expanded to four additional sites in 2014 and has since grown to 15 sites nationally. The Panels involve local iwi leaders and representatives working with eligible Māori participants over 17 years old that are charged with low-level offenses (excluding family violence, methamphetamine, or offenses punishable by more than 6 months’ imprisonment). The process blends tikanga Māori principles with elements of the formal justice system (Akroyd et al., 2016) to consider responses to offending, enabling some to describe it as a restorative practice akin to the FGC (Walton et al., 2020).

Despite this promise, systematic evaluations remain limited. In 2020, NZ Police issued a press release claiming a 54% “success rate” nationwide, and up to 92% in the Wellington region (Radio New Zealand, 2020), but no independent study has substantiated these figures, nor clarified how “success” was defined or measured. In contrast, Walton et al. (2020) found no significant reduction in overall reoffending compared to matched controls, although participants were more likely to reoffend into less serious or non-violent offenses. These findings suggest Panels may shift offending patterns rather than reduce reoffending outright, raising questions about how effectiveness is defined and whether official claims overstate impact.

While these examples are not exhaustive, they represent some of the more promising attempts at co-design and collaboration between governments and Indigenous communities in Australia and New Zealand. In contrast to mainstream conferencing, some of these examples show genuine engagement with Elders, iwi, and other Indigenous stakeholders that can foster stronger better trust and community buy-in. Yet such examples remain small in scale, often short-lived, and heavily constrained by funding and policy priorities. Relative to the widespread use of RJ across both countries, these initiatives are exceptions rather than the norm, and their impact on the entrenched problem of Indigenous overrepresentation has been limited. This highlights a persistent tension in the institutionalization of RJ: even where restorative approaches have incorporated tikanga or community-led design, these have so far operated at the margins of the criminal justice system rather than transforming its dynamics (Rossner & Taylor, 2024; Wood, 2015). This tension is especially evident when we turn to the question most often asked of RJ by policymakers—whether it reduces reoffending.

Restorative Justice and Reoffending

Despite the problems outlined above, there remains strong enthusiasm and advocacy for RJ as a means of achieving better outcomes for Indigenous Peoples compared to conventional court sanctions. Much of this support draws on the larger international evidence base, which shows that victims often prefer RJ and report it to be more satisfactory than conventional court practices (Fulham et al., 2025; Kimbrell et al., 2023), and that offenders generally do no worse and sometimes better as a result of participating in RJ versus conventional court sanctions (Kimbrell et al., 2023; Piggott & Wood, 2019). We do not dispute these broader findings or potential benefits of RJ. Our concern is they are too often assumed to apply across all groups and contexts, when in settler-colonial societies such as Australia and New Zealand the available evidence does not support this assumption.

A primary metric used in both countries to assess program effectiveness is reoffending. Many RJ advocates rightly argue that reoffending is a problematic measure of program success (Robinson & Shapland, 2008), but it remains central to policymaking and to governmental claims that RJ can address Indigenous overrepresentation. It is also critical to our discussion because “reoffending” drives the revolving door of incarceration for many Indigenous Peoples.

Relative to Europe and the United States, fewer studies have compared reoffending outcomes between RJ and conventional court sanctions in Australia. The only research we are aware of to find a decrease in Aboriginal reoffending as a result of RJ participation is Yeong and Moore's (2020) study of circle sentencing in NSW.⁶ While encouraging, this stands in contrast to the findings of the Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE), which remain among the most widely cited studies of RJ. The principal investigators of RISE have acknowledged, for Aboriginal participants, “RJ appears to have caused a very large increase in property crimes against victims” (Strang & Sherman, 2015, p. 3), with Strang (2017, p. 493) later describing this as “the dramatic backfiring effect of RJ with Aboriginal property offenders.” Other comparison studies for either youth or adult offenders in Australia have found minimal or no differences for Indigenous Peoples between RJ and conventional court sanctions in reducing reoffending (Fitzgerald, 2008; Jones, 2009; Poynton, 2013; Smith & Weatherburn, 2012; Walton et al., 2020).⁷

Variation studies and modeling evidence from Australia point in the same direction. Variation analyses in South Australia and Queensland found higher post-conference reoffending for Aboriginal/Indigenous youth (Hayes & Daly, 2003, 2004). A Queensland study comparing Aboriginal with matched non-Aboriginal participants within conferencing reported higher post-conference recidivism for Aboriginal offenders (Little et al., 2018). Complementing these, a micro-simulation study projected that expanding conferencing under its then current use in Queensland would likely further increase Indigenous over-representation (Stewart et al., 2008).

In New Zealand, despite the widespread use of the FGC as a response to youth offending, and the growing use of conferencing for adults, there is minimal comparative or variation research on reoffending outcomes. Triggs (2005) is the only study we are aware of that has compared court and conferencing outcomes for Māori and non-Māori, finding no difference in reoffending rates for conferencing compared to court sanctions. The most cited research on reoffending and the FGC remains the work of Maxwell and Morris (2001). This study assessed factors that predicted better reoffending outcomes for FGC participants. However, these findings did not control for Māori young people, nor did the authors make any such claims specifically regarding outcomes for Māori.

The most comprehensive study of FGC outcomes for Māori and non-Indigenous young people is an evaluation by the Ministry of Justice (Spier & Wilkinson, 2016) of FGCs from 2011 and 2012. This study analyzed reoffending outcomes between types of FGCs (court-referred and intention to treat). Māori young people that participated in both referral-pathways for FGCs reoffended at about the same rates as non-indigenous groups. However, Māori also represented over 50% of the FGC cohorts, despite being approximately 20% of the overall youth population in 2011–12. While the 1989 CYPTFA was instrumental in reducing the overall raw numbers of Māori (and indeed all) young people in custody, this study also shows that overrepresentation remains a primary problem in New Zealand's youth justice system (Wood & Tauri, 2025).

Eurocentrism and Reintegration in Australia and New Zealand

The final issue we address is the assumption that RJ provides an effective mechanism for the “reintegration” of Indigenous Peoples in Australia and New Zealand. In the previous section, we showed that empirical and evaluative research offers little evidence that RJ reduces reoffending in this context. Here, we turn to a more fundamental critique: that the very concept of reintegration is problematic in the settler-colonial context, particularly in the recognition of settler colonialism as an ongoing process and not a past discrete historical event (Wolfe, 2006).

Returning to Braithwaite's Crime, Shame, and Reintegration, this work is perhaps the most influential in setting forth more “communitarian” responses to offending, initially in restorative forms of conferencing in Australia, but now more globally. The predominant example of communitarian responses that Braithwaite drew from in this work was Japan—a country with an extremely homogenous population and shared ritual elements of shame management and reintegration. Following publication of this work, RJ advocates furthered the idea that “Indigenous” forms of justice, in particular the FGC, also represented more “communitarian” responses to offending (e.g., Bazemore, 2000; Schweigert, 1999). Braithwaite (1994, p. 12) also later seemed to affirm this view as well, noting “Maori philosophy rejects Western notions of individual guilt in favour of collective experience of shame and ‘restoration of balance’ or ‘healing’ (equivalent to reintegration).”

Yet while these ideas may appear “equivalent” to reintegration for Māori, the FGC and other forms of conferencing are not Māori-based practices. As discussed earlier, problems of tokenization and the limited knowledge or respect for tikanga Māori among Pākehā youth justice coordinators and social workers remain evident. Love (2017, p. 127) makes this gap explicit, observing:

If the model of a whanau hui was to be followed, professionals and representatives of state agencies would not be present at family group conferences. Their presence can be intimidating and disempowering for whanau and can disrupt the process in a number of ways. Whanau, and particularly senior whanau members, can experience whakamaa (embarrassment and humiliation) or anger when their whanau processes are being observed by, or (as tends to be the case) led by Pakeha (European) professionals.

Here, Love acknowledges the role of senior whānau members specifically because of the importance of mana in addressing wrongdoing. Mana, broadly understood as an individual's “moral authority,” granted through their whakapapa, knowledge and socio-cultural standing (Boyce, 2011), is both individual and collective in all aspects of Māori social life. Thus, transgressions impact the mana of the wrongdoer, their whānau, hapū (sub-tribe), and even iwi; but also the mana of the person(s) harmed, their whānau, and (in cases of serious wrongdoing) even their hapū or iwi (Jackson, 1988). Correspondingly, responses to more serious transgressions, such as those traditionally dealt with by the FGC, would usually precipitate involvement of those with appropriate mana to achieve “restoration” for all involved (Workman, 2018). In this regard, whakamaa of whānau, especially of senior whānau members, is not just a problem of “saving face” or being embarrassed. Rather, the presence of state professionals can undermine rather than enable resolution, as it displaces the authority of whānau and locates it instead in the facilitator as a representative of the state (Moyle & Tauri, 2016).

The export of the FGC to Australia combined elements of the FGC model with Braithwaite's theory of reintegrative shaming. Early adaptations, such as the “Wagga” model in New South Wales and pilot schemes in Queensland and South Australia, were not designed to address Indigenous overrepresentation. In Queensland, for instance, conferencing was introduced under Premier Rob Borbidge's “tough on crime” agenda, framed as a way to make young people directly accountable to victims (Price et al., 2022). To our knowledge, Aboriginal communities and Elders were not consulted in the development or expansion of restorative conferencing in Australia, though this conclusion is necessarily tentative within the available documentation. While there are some exceptions to later initiatives, such as the Mornington Island initiatives, RJ in both youth and adult systems has remained largely state-designed and delivered through state-approved service providers.

Lack of Indigenous involvement in the development of restorative mechanisms in Australia and New Zealand presents problems beyond cultural gaps in practice. More fundamentally, RJ has been embedded within criminal justice systems that often disregard Aboriginal, Māori, and Torres Strait Islander experiences of colonization, both historical and ongoing. While Indigenous responses to wrongdoing may share certain “communitarian” features with contexts such as Japan, they occur within a vastly different social reality—one where Indigenous Peoples have far less to “reintegrate” into. Here, attempts to apply Braithwaite's theory of reintegration to RJ practices for Indigenous Peoples tend to overlook the impacts of land dispossession as a fundamental part of genocidal practices in Australia especially (Comyn, 2022; Wolfe, 2006), although the intent of British colonizers was not dissimilar for Māori. Assumptions of reintegration likewise ignore the deliberate and systematic targeting of family and kinship networks through the stealing of children; the “relocation” of Indigenous Peoples to forms of indentured servitude or de facto slavery; and the use of epistemic forms of violence to westernize and Christianize Aboriginal, Māori, and Torres Strait Islanders (Dudgeon et al., 2014; HREOC, 1997; MacDonald, 2023; RCAIC, 2024).

While settler colonialism is often depicted by policymakers and the media as a historical episode, its structures and effects remain ongoing (Birch, 1997; Fields et al., 2024; Jackson, 1988; RCAIC, 2024; Sherwood, 2013). To paraphrase Wolfe (2006), colonialism is a structure rather than a distinct event; one that provides opportunities for the state to reconfigure and reinvent policies and interventions to ensure the continued hegemony of settler-colonial forms of dispossession and structural inequalities (Proulx, 2003; Woolford, 2013).

And so, land remains stolen and continues to be defaced and usurped under the authority of the Crown. Indigenous people are still disproportionally murdered by the authorities. Children are still stolen from their families. Youth and adults are incarcerated at phenomenally higher rates than whites. Indigenous victims often remain ignored if not belittled by the police. Scholars and governmental agencies churn out countless reports each year demonstrating the ongoing impacts colonization and—most relevant to our argument—the increasing centrality of the criminal justice system as a primary institution of continuing colonial social relationships and corresponding forms of social control (Saleh-Hanna, 2020).

Colonization as an ongoing structure rarely factors into advocates’ claims that RJ practices are based on, reflective of, or especially suited to Indigenous Peoples (see Cunneen, 2012). Such claims obscure not only the distinct, communitarian nature of Indigenous justice practices (Cunneen & Tauri, 2016) but also the lived realities of intergenerational trauma, racism, social marginalization, and continuing injustice. This critique is not new. In 1997, Blagg (1997, pp. 489–490) confronted assumptions in the usefulness of shaming mechanisms such as RJ for Aboriginal people in Australia when he argued:

For the ceremony (be it intended to degrade or integrate) to be meaningful for the actors involved, relationships within the ceremony must be analogous … to those existing between people in the everyday world. We must have an image of us all ‘getting along’ and having a place in some civil realm of everyday life beyond the ceremony. However … such images of ‘civil equality’ remain at variance with the reality of ruthless dispossession and racist contempt that have characterized the history of relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia: a reality that the police themselves have done much to cement and perpetuate and in many ways represent for Aboriginal people.

Yet almost three decades later there remains scant research on how Indigenous Peoples experience concepts like “shame” in RJ in similar or distinct ways, or through the lenses of historical trauma, racism, and social exclusion (see Love, 2017; Moyle, 2014; Moyle & Tauri, 2016 for exceptions). Rather, normative assumptions about admitting guilt, demonstrating remorse, expressing shame, and being accepted “back” into society have largely been constructed by non-Indigenous practitioners and policymakers, then deployed in criminal justice systems that are inherently individualistic in their responses to offending.

It is thus not surprising the deep distrust Indigenous Peoples in Australia and New Zealand have of the criminal justice system extends to state-centered uses of RJ (Blagg, 1998, 2001; Cunneen, 1997; Jeffries et al., 2021; Moyle, 2014; Nancarrow, 2006; Pratt, 1996; Strang, 2001; Tauri, 1999). “Reintegration” in the context of Indigenous Peoples in Australia and New Zealand evokes, however unwittingly, the logic of assimilationist policies that have led to mass-incarceration. It assumes a highly individualistic and often ahistorical view of wrongdoing where practices developed in Kitchner, Ontario, or Minnesota, or even by Pākehā in New Zealand are equally relevant and ontologically meaningful for Aboriginal, Māori, or Torres Strait Islanders—leading to Māori scholar Juan Tauri's (2022) question of “What exactly are you restoring us to?” Conversely, when such approaches do not work well, responsibility is often shifted back onto Indigenous communities themselves (through narratives of alcoholism, unemployment, poor education, or cultural deficits) rather than onto the limitations of RJ as a mechanism of “reintegration.”

The question of whether RJ mechanisms may be the wrong approach, however, is rarely posed. Instead, reintegration, along with associated ideals of “communitarianism,” continues to be recycled by policymakers and advocates in both countries as a strong justification for RJ. This is where the veneer of RJ as an “Indigenous” justice practice becomes most problematic. As Cunneen (1997) has argued, the “fiction of Indigenous control” in restorative conferencing not only conflates state-based RJ approaches with Indigenous justice but also risks deflecting or assimilating Indigenous calls for self-determination.

Returning to Braithwaite once more, we are not dismissive of the impact of his work or the ethos of seeking more humane responses to wrongdoing. He has often acknowledged structural and historical forms of oppression:

Restorative justice cannot resolve the deep structural injustices that cause problems like hunger. But we must demand two things of restorative justice here. First, it must not make structural injustice worse (in the way, for example, that the Australian criminal justice system does by being an important cause of the unemployability and oppression of Aboriginal people). Indeed, we should hope from restorative justice for micro-measures that ameliorate macro-injustice where this is possible (Braithwaite, 1996, p. 17).

Three decades on, however, structural injustices remain for Indigenous Peoples in Australia and New Zealand and, in some cases, have worsened—particularly with rising rates of overincarceration. It is also clear that “micro-measures” in RJ have made little headway in addressing these broader injustices.

Decolonizing Restorative Justice?

The Standing Rock Sioux scholar Vine Deloria Jr once remarked about the difference between two types of violence encountered by Indigenous Peoples in North America. “Had the tribes been given the choice of fighting the cavalry or the anthropologists, there is little doubt as to whom they would have chosen … A warrior killed in battle could always go to the Happy Hunting Grounds. Where does an Indian laid low by Anthro go? To the library?” (Deloria, 1969, p. 81), Deloria's critique of anthropologists working in Indigenous communities in North America is well-known. His book Custer Died for your Sins was seminal in the growing movement to confront the colonial origins of anthropology and other disciplines that turned Indigenous Peoples, their cultures, and their histories into objects of western knowledge and fascination while doing little to support, or even exploiting, such communities.⁸

Might something similar be said of RJ scholars and advocates who have arrived from Europe or North America to “discover” the justice of Aboriginal or Māori peoples, and then repackage these into a “science” purported to improve the lives of indigenes? Such a claim may seem jarring to those who, like Deloria's anthropologists, view themselves as on the side of Indigenous Peoples. Yet the question is a fair one: what evidence—positivistic, empirical, grounded, Indigenous, or otherwise—demonstrates notable positive impacts of RJ on overrepresentation, victim redress, community efficacy, or other aspects of Indigenous wellbeing in Australia and New Zealand? To date, the number of relevant studies or evaluations supporting this is strikingly small, contrasted against the larger weight of evidence we have discussed suggesting otherwise.

To be fair, many early RJ advocates envisioned restorative mechanisms as genuine alternatives to the criminal justice system, rather than simply another service added to the menu of government responses to offending. In Australia and New Zealand, however, the reality has been closer to the latter, reflecting what Wood et al. (2024) have called the “Faustian bargain” advocates have made with the state in integrating RJ into more widespread use as a criminal justice system practice.

Such a bargain has not been without some merit. For many victims in Australia and New Zealand, RJ remains the only process that affords them a degree of decision-making and agency. Yet even here, there is minimal research on the usefulness, let alone inclusion, of Indigenous victims in RJ. This is highly problematic, given the equally documented history of racism by the police against Indigenous victims. Nevertheless, our critique should not be read as a rejection of RJ altogether, nor as a denial that some Indigenous people and communities may find value in these practices.

Rather, the central question guiding this article is whether RJ can operate as a decolonizing practice in Australia and New Zealand. Our conclusion is it cannot—at least not in its current form or dominant applications. Even here we hesitate to suggest otherwise, as much of the advocacy and evaluation of RJ remains tied to what we call the “we must do better” problem: the assumption that improving restorative practices or better culturally accommodating Indigenous Peoples will in turn produce better outcomes.

Yet we do not see these issues of practice or cultural accommodation as the central problems, although they may help explain why many Indigenous Peoples and communities continue to find such practices unhelpful or even disempowering. The deeper problem, in our view, lies in the integration of RJ into existing criminal justice systems. This is the other side of the “Faustian bargain”: once aligned with state institutions, RJ becomes enmeshed within systems of oppression, ongoing colonization, and Eurocentric theories of crime that frame “solutions” as reintegration, community capacity-building, or other state-supported goals.

After all, who can argue against such lofty goals? Yet in our view, restorative mechanisms have often been shielded from critical scrutiny precisely because they are framed as the humane alternative to the “bad” and “punitive” criminal justice system. As Agozino (2003) and others (Deckert, 2014; Kitossa, 2012) remind us however, criminology itself originated as a colonial discipline, first deployed against Indigenous Peoples and later exported back to the metropole to discipline and control poor and racialized populations. RJ is not exempt from these histories. In Australia and New Zealand, it is now firmly embedded within them.

This is evident in the widening rift between advocates who frame RJ as a form of “Indigenous justice,” and the work of Indigenous scholars, activists, and allies who emphasize self-determination in the development and use of Indigenous-based responses to wrongdoing. This rift is reflected in the strikingly low level of engagement with Indigenous voices and perspectives in RJ scholarship about Australia and New Zealand. Even a cursory glance at the literature reveals the recycling of familiar tropes and claims that RJ exemplifies Aboriginal or, especially, Māori justice. Outside of a small group of critical scholars and practitioners, contemporary Indigenous critiques of injustice are largely absent from the stream of articles, books, practice manuals, and entrepreneurial products that invoke indigeneity or “cultural appropriateness” as a hallmark of RJ.

This is despite the substantial evidence we have presented to the contrary. Indigenous Peoples in Australia and New Zealand do not “own” their own justice, in whatever form. This stands in contrast to early RJ initiatives in places like Kitchener, Ontario, or St Paul, Minnesota, where programs were more genuinely grassroots and designed to meet the justice needs of local communities. In such cases, as Blagg (1997, p. 486) has noted, such shaming “may very well be reintegrative when the ceremonies reflect and harmonize with the embedded values of a particular community.”

This has been far less the case in Australia and New Zealand. Instead, most programs have been designed and delivered by state agencies, or through state-approved service providers, as extensions of the criminal justice system. As such, Indigenous forms of justice have not been integrated into RJ. Rather, RJ has too often been used to “brownwash” diverse Indigenous practices into palatable and state-manageable responses to the “Indigenous problem.” In this process, RJ scholarship has sometimes treated Indigenous justice as “raw material” for western theories of crime, while overlooking the growing body of Indigenous-led research and practice that articulates justice responses to crime and wrongdoing beyond RJ.

Concluding Remarks

In our introduction, we noted it is not our intent to “decolonize” restorative justice. Such an endeavor must begin from the recognition that Indigenous Peoples and communities have a fundamental right to self-determination. For us, this is the most basic element of decolonizing criminal justice, including RJ as part of the criminal justice system. Yet despite the frequent romanticization of Indigenous “community” in RJ scholarship, little attention has been paid to the repeated calls from Aboriginal, Māori, and Torres Strait Islander Peoples for self-determination and sovereignty.

In the context of Australia and New Zealand, the wrong question then is what does restorative justice look like for Indigenous Peoples? The question positions RJ as an a priori good waiting to be “rediscovered” and applied for the benefit of Indigenous Peoples and communities. At best, this is a decidedly ahistorical question. At worst, it replicates the logics of colonizing assumptions and practices—namely, that externally developed models of justice can or should be imposed as appropriate solutions for Indigenous Peoples and communities.

The better question is what does justice look like for Indigenous Peoples? While some Indigenous communities in other countries have initiated and designed restorative responses to wrongdoing, pointing to these as proof of the “indigeneity” of RJ ignores the central role of self-determination in such examples. It also homogenizes Indigenous Peoples and overlooks distinct histories and present realities of colonization, especially regarding land ownership, sovereignty, and the role of treaty recognition in Australia and settlement in New Zealand.

Here, even Australia and New Zealand differ. The former has no treaty with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, while Māori have reclaimed small portions of their original lands through the Treaty of Waitangi. Yet even for Māori iwi that collectively own land, there is no self-governance around crime or wrongdoing. Compared with some tribes in Canada and the United States, these limitations are notable. Imposing RJ as a presumed solution on culturally distinct Indigenous communities, each facing unique and ongoing social, legal, and economic impacts of colonization, disregards these differences to the detriment of those such practices claim to serve.

If RJ advocates want to support decolonizing movements, they must first acknowledge the evidence that, in Australia and New Zealand, RJ has had little impact on reducing overrepresentation or addressing broader Indigenous justice needs and interests. The first step is thus recognizing that state-designed RJ may not be seen as particularly useful or beneficial by Indigenous Peoples.

Beyond this, non-Indigenous RJ scholars and advocates should refrain from making claims about the supposed “indigeneity” of RJ or repeating state rhetoric about its cultural appropriateness for Indigenous Peoples. Instead, scholarship and advocacy must engage with the diverse voices of Indigenous communities about what justice means for them, including how to respond to wrongdoing in ways that can potentially decolonize criminal justice.

To date, Aboriginal, Māori, and Torres Strait Islander communities are still advocating for the right of program-level authority over “on country” or “by Māori, for Māori” responses to crime and social issues. Yet they remain beholden to governmental programs and policies that, by the state's own admission, do not work well. The ability to design and implement approaches by Indigenous communities, for Indigenous communities is a central step toward such goals. But this is also a limited view of self-determination. Sovereignty, land, and treaty settlement remain paramount, and without these, the goals of “restoration” promised by RJ will remain partial at best, and harmful at worst.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Decolonising Criminology and Crime Control: Critical Indigenous Perspectives Symposium (2024), hosted by the Macquarie University Global Indigenous Futures Research Centre and supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The authors thank Distinguished Professor Bronwyn Carlson and all symposium participants for their feedback and support.

ORCID iDs

William R. Wood

Juan Tauri

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Legislation

Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 (New Zealand).

Young Offenders Act 1997 (New South Wales).

Notes

Author Biographies

William R. Wood is Senior Lecturer in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Boston College. His research focuses on youth justice and alternative responses to youth crime, with a particular emphasis on restorative justice and its institutionalisation, as well as the relationship between youth offending and trauma.

Juan Tauri is Professor of Criminology at the University of Melbourne. His research and teaching focuses on critical analysis of state policymaking and its impact on Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial societies, Indigenous experiences of family violence, the globalisation of restorative justice, the impact of institutional research ethics processes on Indigenous research.

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Restorative Justice on Stolen Ground: Dispossession,Entrenchment,and Eurocentric Justice in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Restorative Justice in Australia and New Zealand

The Restorative Embrace of “Indigenous” Justice

Restorative Justice and Dispossession

Whose Conflicts? What Property?

Entrenchment in the Criminal Justice System

Policing

Restorative Justice Program Evaluation

Co-Collaboration With Indigenous Communities

Restorative Justice and Reoffending

Eurocentrism and Reintegration in Australia and New Zealand

Decolonizing Restorative Justice?

Concluding Remarks

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

ORCID iDs

Funding

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Legislation

Notes

Author Biographies

References