Between practices and discourses: uses of restorative justice in resolving conflitcs involving school children, teenagers and their families in São Caetano do Sul-SP

Abstract

This article examines some of the ways the alternative model of conflict resolution called restorative justice have been used. It is presented data from fieldwork conducted in the city of São Caetano do Sul (SP), a place where a program for the resolution of conflicts involving school children and adolescents runs. I argue that despite all the discourses of innovation carried by restorative justice, it currently presents characteristics that have been observed for researches that studied official justice for minors. It is and alternative model, but strongly affected by practices and discourses that are not provided by the theoretical principles that initially underlie it. Thus, before being an alternative form of conflict management, the restorative justice has been practiced as a procedure or a step inside the classic form of judicial management of conflicts turned to the punishment of the offender.