Justice for Women Who Experience Intimate Partner Violence: Reflections on Restorative Justice Ideals and Making Social Meaning

Abstract

This is a deductive study testing Hudson’s (2006; 2003) theory of social justice and, specifically, her delineation of three restorative justice principles (discursiveness, reflectiveness and relationalism) in order to explore how the principles might respond to the justice needs of women who have experienced abuse and violence by male intimate partners. Through in-depth and critically informed one-on-one interviews with twelve women who have experienced intimate partner violence in former relationships, it asks how abused women conceptualize justice and how justice might be done through restorative justice principles. The women offer social conceptualizations of justice and of doing justice that reconfigure the principles of restorative justice to prioritize protective solutions, and they locate them in domains outside of criminal justice where the complexities and dynamics of intimate partner violence are well understood and they demonstrate openness to support abused women. Their feedback about restorative justice principles suggests configurations in social service domains such as help lines, crisis centres, and shelters and, more broadly through policies enabling social responsibility in domains such as workplaces, media, and social media where there is the potential to create collaborations and protective solutions. Despite frustrations with the criminal justice system for its inability to provide long term protective solutions, given its ability to help some women in the short term, the women were not willing to jettison it.