A team from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Sassari, Italy, has won an award from the Italian Association of Psychology for its work on creating a relational and restorative community to prevent crime and to promote well-being and so building an Italian restorative city in Tempio Pausania (Sardinia).

The team writes in their report:

Since restorative justice has the immediate potential to combine the needs of rehabilitation and social security through community involvement and conflict management, we try to build in Tempio Pausania an occasion to favourite a cultural change: trying to involve all communities to bring a sense of “Restorative Cities” (such as Hull and Leeds in England); involving the schools to adopt a model of restorative justice; trying to organize all the services and commercial stores to promote a peaceful management view of the everyday life to give back to the community the ability to manage and resolve conflicts.

Restorative justice also relates to a complex international debate about implementing measures and operational protocols in the judicial system, with the purpose of promoting individual and collective welfare, combatting relapse and spreading societal security. These indicate the need to revise penal systems in the light of scientific evidence and operational considerations. Recently Italy has introduced new laws that lead in this direction. The model of conflict management at the community level allows the development of early years education, supporting the use of restorative approaches as educational tools for reciprocity and responsibility in relationships with others.