Unveiling restorative justice and its challenges: implementation in the state of Goiás as a public policy for socio-educational assistance

Abstract

Restorative justice applied to adolescents in conflict with the law has been primarily led by the judiciary, constituting a judicial public policy. The overall objective of the research is to verify whether restorative practices are being developed in the state of Goiás within the realm of juvenile delinquency in the procedural phase. The research is quantitative, employing descriptive statistics to demonstrate the number of adolescents in conflict with the law apprehended in Goiás and the municipalities of Goiânia/GO and Luziânia/GO between 2016 and 2019. It is also qualitative, employing a case study with an analytical-descriptive approach through semi-structured interviews. Therefore, to address the research question "To what extent are restorative practices being implemented within the juvenile justice system in Goiás at the procedural level?” the research hypothesis is that there is a structured procedural application of restorative practices with juvenile offenders in Goiás who are serving detention measures. However, one of the main findings indicates that restorative practices were not being implemented in the procedural phase at the Juvenile Court in Goiânia/GO in 2018, despite information to the contrary in the report titled "Piloting Restorative Justice" by the National Council of Justice. Another result of the research is that a restorative circle training course was conducted by the Court of Justice in Goiânia/GO at the end of 2019. During the period from 2016 to 2019, the only noteworthy experience in the state of Goiás was in the municipality of Luziânia/GO with institutionalized socio-educational participants.