Responsibilising the parents of young offenders through restorative justice: a genealogical account

In recent decades, restorative justice has come to occupy an accepted part of many criminal justice landscapes across the Western world. Scholars have therefore attempted to make sense of the rise of restorative justice in Western countries, and a number of traditional histories of various restorative practices have emerged in this context. These attempts to account for the rise of restorative justice have, however, been roundly criticised for romanticising the past and making ahistorical claims. In this context, and utilising Foucault’s framework of genealogy, this article considers one frequently-overlooked aspect of the emergence of restorative justice practices for young offenders: the responsibilisation of parents of young offenders. The article posits discourses of parental responsibilisation as one condition of emergence of restorative justice. In doing so, it seeks to historically situate research that demonstrates the responsibilising effects of restorative practices on parents of young offenders.