Restorative Justice im Justizvollzug

Can a prison be a place of justice—for inmates, for those affected, and for society? Restorative justice poses a crucial question to the modern correctional system: What happens when justice is understood not merely as punishment, but as a path to accountability, recognition, and possible healing? From a Christian social-ethical perspective, this book offers a new perspective on the correctional system. It demonstrates how restorative processes challenge existing penal practices, deepen the correctional goal of rehabilitation, and can create spaces where harm, needs, and responsibility are addressed anew. In doing so, it examines the ethical foundations of freedom, guilt, and responsibility, as well as concrete approaches to offender-victim mediation within the correctional system. Spanning theological ethics, jurisprudence, human rights, and trauma-therapeutic perspectives, this book offers a multifaceted contribution to a conception of justice that seeks more than mere retribution. It invites readers to critically examine the extent to which the correctional system could be a place where responsibility becomes possible, where harm is taken seriously, and where the question of a good life for all involved remains a central concern.