Restorative Justice in Uruguay: A Change of Lenses in a Reform of Criminal Justice?

In recent decades, several countries have adopted restorative justice as a means of conflict resolution. While this tradition has deep roots in English-speaking and European countries, the use of restorative justice has been limited in Latin America. In an innovative effort, the Uruguayan Ministry of the Interior developed a restorative justice program as part of a comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system that entailed significant transformations, mainly in the legal system (from an inquisitorial to an adversarial one) and the Uruguayan National Police Force. This article examines this restorative justice initiative in detail, describing the context of its implementation, its implications for the reform of the criminal justice system, its preliminary results and future challenges that lie ahead.