Restorative Justice and Mediation Within the Criminal Legal System in Aragon

Abstract

Restorative justice has become a conflict-solving philosophy with a global vocation, involving the parties and aiming for the accountability of the aggressor and reparation for the victims. Among the tools to implement it in the criminal judicial scope, the most extended is mediation, especially in Europe. However, there are many resistances to its implementation, both from the profession and from the institutions, and even from the people. In order to take a deeper look into these resistances, and to clarify the challenges that public policies are facing, this paper presents the findings of a socio-legal research carried out in 2019 about restorative justice and criminal mediation within the judiciary in the Autonomous Community of Aragon (Spain).

Keywords

• restorative justice
• criminal mediation
• facilitators
• legal operators
• criminal justice