This monograph provides an empirical and theoretical exploration of restorative justice (RJ) in China, the world’s largest and most diverse RJ system, yet one that remains underexplored in global socio-legal and criminological scholarship. Based on extensive fieldwork—including semi-structured interviews with legal professionals and community mediators, observations of mediation sessions across urban and Indigenous sites, and archival analysis—the book examines four key RJ programs: people’s mediation (community-based dispute resolution), public order mediation (police-led interventions for minor offenses), criminal reconciliation (state-mandated settlements in criminal cases, universally implemented across China), and De Gu mediation (an Indigenous practice among the Yi ethnic minority in Liangshan Prefecture). Aimed at socio-legal scholars, criminologists, political scientists, anthropologists, and policymakers interested in comparative justice systems, authoritarian governance, legal pluralism, and Indigenous justice, the book reveals how RJ operates within China’s party-state regime—often as a “thin but broad” form of justice shaped by political imperatives for social harmony and stability maintenance—while challenging Western-centric RJ models through a multi-layered analysis of macro-ideologies (e.g., Confucian harmony and Maoist dialectics), meso-institutional reforms (e.g., 2010 People’s Mediation Law and 2012 Criminal Procedural Law amendments), and micro-practices (e.g., frontline discretion and hybrid state-Indigenous interactions). It highlights RJ’s potential for healing, empowerment, and mutual constitution amid domination, thereby contributing to the decolonization of socio-legal theory by integrating Chinese and Indigenous Yi perspectives.
