Achieving the three ideals of restorative justice, empowerment, remorse and reintegration, and bridging the barriers between participants, was found to be elusive. However, accountability dynamics around the areas of gender, race, and social class reinforce social privileges and disadvantage. To reach these ideals, specific attention must be given to them as they affect the ways in which people account for their actions and what those accounts mean. In struggling to move forward with the practice of restorative justice, the setting of standards is recommended. Utilizing extensive field notes from research conducted on restorative justice in Australia and from the author, a practitioner in Maine, this article analyzed the social dynamics in restorative justice conferences which employ two distinct meanings of accountability: the performance of gendered social relations and the performance of remorse. References