In view of the increased risk of both perpetration and victimization among people with a mild intellectual disability (MID), criminal law mediators and recovery mediators regularly have to deal with offenders or victims with an MID. Relatively little attention seems to be paid to this. With this article, the authors want to give an impetus to further reflection on the importance of paying attention to people with MID within restorative justice. This is done by addressing: 1) possible bottlenecks in restorative mediation or mediation in criminal cases itself, 2) recognizing the MID and 3) the accessibility of restorative justice facilities for people with an MID. The work of four students from the Social Work and Social Legal Services programs at Leiden University of Applied Sciences, is used for this purpose. They conducted exploratory interviews with mediators and MID-experts as part of their thesis. A restorative justice process can help victims with an MID to restore the balance and give them autonomy, control and responsibility. With due attention, it is also generally possible to explain to someone with an MID what the added value can be of participating in restorative mediation or mediation, but it is necessary – partly on the basis of human rights, including the Handicap Convention – that the possible bottlenecks are taken into account in the process. Those are described as well as future research necessities.

In this study the author points out that ritual theories of restorative justice – which revolve around emotional bonding – fail to explain the rather low emotional temperature of many (youth) conferences. Emotion management theory may offer a more adequate explanation, thereby suggesting that participants’ reservations and discomfort are related to demanding display rules (enact a sincere and authentic role; enact cooperativeness; etc.). It is argued that display rules form an integral part of a relatively compelling ‘emotional regime’, a specific set of affective behavioural norms which define the ‘manners’ during the meeting. In this regime there is considerable social pressure to conform to norms and standards how to express emotions, which contradicts the restorative justice rhetoric of voluntary dialogue, free of coercion.

The article describes what a restorative city is by looking at research, experiences in different countries and by describing the developments in Restorative City Wrocław. A restorative city is a city that recognises its urban environment as a network of relations in which – in the case of conflict – citizens, institutions and organisations choose a restorative approach to finding a solution in the first place. This necessitates proactive responses to conflict resolution, which go beyond criminal justice and crime prevention strategies that are still predominantly of a reactive nature. The concept of the restorative justice city builds a ‘criminology of trust’, for which crime is not a risk to be managed and controlled but a harm to be addressed by penal policies based on respect, solidarity, inclusion and active participation The restorative city concept, as also seen in Wrocław, is gaining momentum and while it is becoming an appealing policy transfer in an increasingly globalized world.