The three principles of restorative justice are that justice requires working to restore victims, offenders, and communities that have been injured by crime; victims, offenders, and communities should have opportunities for active involvement in the process as early and as fully as possible; and in promoting justice, the government is responsible for preserving order and the community for establishing peace. The four values of restorative justice are encounter, amends, reintegration, and inclusion. The key elements of encounters are meeting, narrative, emotion, understanding, and agreement. The key elements for amends are apology, changed behavior, restitution, and generosity. The reintegration process has three key elements: respect, material assistance, and moral/spiritual direction. Inclusion involves invitation, acknowledgement of interests, and acceptance of alternative approaches. When evaluating the handling of a particular case or of a program, the question is whether the response was as restorative as possible under the circumstances. The restorative character of a system reflects two features: aspirations as reflected in programs and resources; and the number of people given access to the restorative system. The ways in which restorative programs have intersected with the justice system are finding problems and opportunities that cannot be adequately addressed by contemporary criminal justice; creating restorative programs that are essentially outside the criminal justice system; identifying states in the criminal justice process that may be amenable to restorative practices; and adding restorative outcomes to the justice system itself. The four basic models of restorative justice are unified, dual track, safety net, and hybrid. The unified model is brought about by either conversion of criminal justice to restorative purposes and values, or by its replacement by a restorative system. The dual track model is where the criminal justice and restorative justice systems operate side-by-side with occasional cooperation. The safety net model uses vestiges of the criminal justice system when the restorative approach cannot work. The hybrid model uses parts of strong restorative values and parts reflecting contemporary criminal justice values. 8 tables, 21 notes