“Healing the Wound That the Blow Made”: A Scoping Review of Anti-Racist Restorative and Reparatory Justice Programs

Abstract

Restorative justice and anti-racism movements both aim to address and repair socially produced harm, yet their intersection remains limited. While public health research increasingly acknowledges the impacts of structural racism, there is a noticeable lack of restorative and reparative programs that actively incorporate anti-racist principles. To bridge this gap, we conducted a scoping review to identify restorative and reparatory justice programs that directly engage with anti-racism efforts. We restricted the review to publications that described and evaluated the implementation of restorative and reparatory programs and included a formal acknowledgment of structural racism in the harm being addressed. A two-tiered review of the literature included Google searches and Boolean searches of databases, and selected publications were analyzed along four axes: restoration and repair, injustice, parties involved, and structural racism. We identified 159 independent citations; six met the inclusion criteria. Most publications described programs in schools, health care, and criminal-legal settings. Nearly all programs strengthened relationships between those in positions of authority and communities affected by structural racism. Based on these findings, and recognizing that public health extends beyond health care settings, we offer recommendations for embedding anti-racist restorative and reparatory practices into the fabric of various public institutions. Revolutionary civil rights activist Malcolm X exemplifies this ethos in an interview: “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made.”