Book Review: Grazia Mannozzi and Giovanni Angelo Lodigiani, 2015. Giustizia riparativa. Ricostruire legami, ricostruire persone (Restorative Justice. Rebuilding Relationships, Rebuilding People)

The concept of restorative justice is a fashionable topic nowadays: here and there national and international legislators, as well as political and religious actors, recall it, more as guideline rather than as a systematic way of understanding and applying justice. Its main scope is that of transitional justice, to replace or accompany criminal procedures: the media boom of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission has fostered its spread. Yet, is it possible to improve such justice also in everyday criminal cases? And what for? The authors of the book want to show us the concreteness and the practicability of this justice also within the Italian criminal context, which, until now, has weakly developed some restorative procedures, mostly with regard to minors. According to them, much remains to be done. The book proposes a few interesting procedural changes, but it also deals with the philosophical meaning of restorative justice, its criminological interpretation, and its first faint attempts within the Italian judicial practice.