Samenvatting

On the basis of current definitions and approaches of restorative justice and crime prevention, and making use of a two-dimensional typology of crime prevention, this article develops a conceptual framework and seeks to offer points of connections and departure at the theoretical level between restorative justice practices and different models of offender-oriented, victim-oriented and community-oriented prevention. In order to face some of the present limitations of restorative justice, in particular the missing link to causes of crime at the societal-structural level, the author widens the perspective of restorative justice to the broader notion of ‘community justice’. The challenge for restorative justice is, then, to integrate polycentric problem-solving approaches into its operational models.