The National Center on Restorative Justice’s Restorative Justice Laws Database was created as a resource for restorative justice advocates, practitioners, and researchers as well as policy-makers across the United States. Our aim is to organize and display in an easily navigated format the ways in which states have codified the use of restorative justice approaches.
Thank you to Shannon Sliva (University of Denver) and Thalia González (UC Law San Francisco) for their advisement and expertise throughout the process of creating this database. Thank you to Karen Sheu and Anna VanRoy for their data collection work.
This Restorative Justice Laws Database builds on an earlier legislative directory created in 2014 by Shannon Sliva in partnership with Carolyn Lambert (Georgia State University College of Law) and hosted by the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work from 2019 to 2024.
The laws included in this database were identified by conducting a search in Westlaw and LexisNexis using the terms visible under “Form of Practice” in the database search options below. Only laws that feature one or more of these terms are included in the database. Use of the terms in the text of the law does not necessarily mean that restorative justice practice is occurring in the given jurisdiction.
The NCORJ is committed to continuing to update this database. If you see something that is missing or a correction is required, please be in touch. For more information about the development of the database, to get assistance navigating it, or to request a copy of the raw data for research purposes, please contact Lindsey Pointer (lpointer@vermontlaw.edu).
(a)(1) The Legislature finds and declares that the purpose of sentencing is public safety achieved through punishment, rehabilitation, and restorative justice. When a sentence includes incarceration, the deprivation of liberty satisfies the punishment purpose of sentencing. The purpose of incarceration…
(B) Grants shall be awarded to fund programs that provide insight-oriented restorative justice and offender accountability programs that can demonstrate that the approach has produced, or will produce, positive outcomes in department facilities, including, but not limited to: (i) Increasing…
(3) Funds allocated to probation pursuant to this act shall be used to provide supervision and rehabilitative services for adult felony offenders subject to local supervision, and shall be spent on evidence-based community corrections practices and programs, as defined in…
(b) The board shall form an executive steering committee that includes, but is not limited to, a balanced and diverse membership from relevant state and local government entities, community-based treatment and service providers, and the formerly incarcerated community. The committee…
(b) Grant funding shall be provided to not-for-profit organizations wishing to expand programs that they are currently providing in other California state prisons that have demonstrated success and focus on offender responsibility and restorative justice principles or to not-for-profit organizations…
(a)(1) All moneys now held for the benefit of inmates currently housed in Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation facilities including those known as the Inmate Canteen Fund of the California Institution for Men; the Inmate Welfare Fund of the California…
(8) “Community-based punishment” means evidence-based correctional sanctions and programming encompassing a range of custodial and noncustodial responses to criminal or noncompliant offender activity. Intermediate sanctions may be provided by local public safety entities directly or through public or private correctional…
(8) “Community-based punishment” means correctional sanctions and programming encompassing a range of custodial and noncustodial responses to criminal or noncompliant offender activity. Community-based punishment may be provided by local public safety entities directly or through community-based public or private correctional…
(e) “Intermediate sanctions” means punishment options and sanctions other than simple incarceration in prison or jail or traditional routine probation supervision. Intermediate sanctions may be provided by correctional agencies directly or through community-based public or private correctional service providers, and…
(e) Agencies shall collect and transmit to the department the following data elements in accordance with this section and under direction from the department. The department shall have discretion to resolve ambiguities in this subdivision consistent with the purposes of…