Localizing restorative justice: An in-depth look at a denver public school program

Although the research literature has been expanding on restorative justice inquiries in the last few decades, there are only a few U.S.-based studies that have focused on restorative justice programming within public schools. Specifically, research is even more scant on the implementation concerns surrounding school-based restorative justice initiatives. Discussions of the effectiveness of these approaches for reducing school disciplinary problems resulting in suspensions, expulsions, and arrests are also rather limited. This chapter presents an in-depth examination into these issues by providing a thorough description of a restorative justice program in its early implementation stages in several Denver, Colorado public schools. The chapter concludes with a discussion of preliminary program evaluation findings and focuses on the overall feasibility of incorporating restorative justice programming in schools.