A micro-social psychology of Restorative Justice: the contribution of the Positioning Theory,

The most shocking thing about this important, new book is that it has not existed before now. It is hard to believe that we have had over two decades of sustained insight, excitement and investment in and around restorative justice theory and practice, and yet only in 2015 are we getting a book with the title The Psychology of Restorative Justice. What does this say about restorative justice? Equally, what does it say about the field of psychology? How could two such natural bedfellows have so successfully avoided one another the past 20-odd years? As the psychologist Michael McCullough (2008) wrote, ‘[a]lthough the restorative justice movement was created without reference to the principles of evolutionary psychology, no evolutionary psychologist could do much to improve on this combination of ingredients for making forgiveness happen’ (p. 178).