Il dilemma dell'istituzionalizzazione della giustizia riparativa nel contesto italiano

Since its inception in a contemporary sense, which occurred in informal contexts and in relation to the shortcomings of criminal justice, restorative justice has been facing a fundamental dilemma: to stay informal, thus avoiding the potential distortions that contact with the criminal justice system may cause, but at the same time giving up the possibility of affecting it; or to operate inside criminal justice, running the risk of losing its ontological autonomy in order to try to reorient retributive and rehabilitative ideals towards reparation and relational justice. This article aims to explore this theme in the Italian context, especially in the light of the new restorative justice "organic discipline" law, through a socio-legal analysis both theoretical – focusing on the different stances towards institutionalization assumed by literature – and empirical – based on several qualitative interviews carried out with expert penal mediators.