This book offers a rare, systematic and interdisciplinary theorisation of restorative justice in criminal matters, in dialogue with continental European legal thought. Rather than presenting restorative justice as a procedural alternative, it conceptualises the restorative response to crime as a fully-fledged horizontal penal response, grounded in the ethical confrontation between the parties concerned, thereby recovering the ethical substance of the vindicatory response without rehabilitating private vengeance. Drawing on law, particularly French legal doctrine, criminology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology and literature, the author develops an original legal-philosophical framework that transforms understandings of punishment, responsibility, victimhood and the State’s role in criminal justice.

Structured in two parts, it first examines the restorative movement’s proposals, their relevance and distinctive contribution to criminal justice. It analyses active responsibility in depth through Aristotelian ethics and ancient Greek concepts and conceptualises victims and offenders as agents of praxis and restorative encounters as ethical arenas. The book shows how the restorative response can horizontalise the reference point of penal sanctioning: its sanctioning force derives from reciprocity between ethical subjects rather than the vertical relationship between the State and the offender. Theoretically ambitious and innovative, the book critically reconsiders the foundations of criminal justice through restorative thought, while bringing conceptual depth to restorative justice discourse. It speaks to scholars of law, criminology, philosophy, sociology and political theory, and to practitioners and policymakers seeking fresh perspectives on the future of punishment.

Artificial intelligence tools were used to assist with the English translation of the original French manuscript. The author reviewed and revised the text to ensure conceptual accuracy, terminological precision, stylistic coherence and consistency.

Katerina Soulou is an associate researcher at the Laboratoire de droit privé et de sciences criminelles (LDPSC), Aix-Marseille University, France. She holds a Ph.D. in Private Law and Criminal Sciences and specialises in criminal law, restorative justice, penal theory and socio-legal research. She served on the Board of the European Forum for Restorative Justice from 2018 to 2024. In 2025, she co-founded its Working Group on "Restorative Justice and the Law", which she has since co-chaired.