The Restorative Justice in Cases of Domestic Violence-project aims at filling research gaps and getting together existing knowledge on using restorative justice in cases of domestic violence or rather – more precise – intimate partner violence.
The main question is: how can restorative justice practices like victim-offender mediation or conferencing be of use in these specific cases of intimate partner violence. Furthermore it aims at exchanging risk points and best practice among practitioners and creating a network of practitioners to increase mutual understanding between different judicial systems and restorative justice practices in the member states. Partners in this project are from Austria, Denmark, Greece, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK. This comparative report consists of an introductory chapter in which we explain the definitions and the aims of the project. We also describe what the international and European legal instruments (conventions, guidelines and recommendations) say about the use of restorative justice in intimate partner violence cases. Chapter 2 gives a comparative overview of the situation in the six partner countries. Chapter 3 presents some first conclusions and discussion points.