One of the ideas championed by the Just Culture (JC) cult, is the idea that Restorative Justice (RJ) is a mechanism to deliver a so called ‘Just Culture’. This is driven by a fixation on under-reporting and a simplistic approach to blame. The trouble with the presentation of this view is that it neither countenances the possibility of other views, proposes dangerous slogans nor has any sense of balance or Transdisciplinarity in its discourse.

For example, Dekker (2025) presents the case for Restorative Justice as a binary choice (between retributive and restorative justice) and at no stage explores the ethics of risk, declares his own ethic or discuss the history and problems with Restorative Justice. Indeed, like many academics, Dekker explores the idea of ‘in whose view’ without declaring his own. The closest Dekker comes to any transparency of his own view on ethics is on p26 that states:

When you are still stumped for what the right thing to do is, think about the golden rule. It boils down to this: don’t do anything to other people that you would not like to be done to yourself. Or, put in reverse: the right thing to do is what you would want done unto yourself. Perhaps that can be your ultimate touchstone. It is also known as common-sense ethics. The advantage of this kind of ethical thinking is that it is easy to understand and apply. It also motivates people to do the right thing because it is a desire they already have (as it applies to themselves).

‘Common-sense ethics’ is nothing more than a deontological ethic, common to traditional safety (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-is-not-a-duty/). Such an ethic is anchored to the simplistic idea that ethics and moral meaning can be known intuitively according to Natural Law. We see this echoed in the slogan ‘do the right thing’ and the AIHS BoK Chapter on Ethics (Check Your Gut). At no stage does Dekker in his text discuss alternatives to this view nor: Care Ethics, Feminist Ethics, Existentialist/Phenomenological Ethics, Dialectical Ethics, Semiosis in Ethics or a host of critical ethical and moral issues that expose the many problems associated with Restorative Justice or Just Culture.

There is a brief discussion in Dekker’s text (2025) on ethics which is then followed up by mis-representations of various theologies and religions regarding ethics, attributing them all as somehow attached to ‘golden-rule’ ethics. The many mis-representations that are common in Dekker’s theological commentaries come from a lack of theological expertise proposed in argument as if valid. Dekker is always at his worst when he attempts Theology and then tries to bring it into safety eg. a theology of suffering, Lot’s daughters, atonement and repentance.

Part of the Just Culture myth is the argument that one asks ‘what’ not ‘who’, when there has been error or harm. Often this is presented as a ‘balanced’ view (Busch) yet, in a binary way eg. one’s choice is either retributive or restorative; just culture is about not asking ‘who’ but ‘what’. Such binary choices in safety should be avoided, such approaches are not ‘balanced’.

By eliminating the question about who and by peddling the slogan of ‘blame fixes nothing’ this view creates a very dangerous ethic. It also endorses the traditional safety ethic of deontology (there is no ‘safety differently’ without a different ethic and methodology)

 Anchoring any approach to safety on a collection of slogans doesn’t bode well for any practice of ethics in safety nor for any sustainable change in safety practice.

 For example. If we apply this idea of not asking ‘who’ and only asking ‘what’ to the abuse of children by priests we end up seeking blame in the church (the Just Culture myth proposes the problem is the system not individuals).  Thank goodness the Just Culture myth didn’t guide the Royal Commission into child abuse (https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/final-report).

There are other approaches to the challenge of under-reporting than the Just Culture myth. Indeed, there are alternative views that make much better sense of both Justice and Culture (not defined well in the Just Culture myth), than the discourse proposed by the proponents of Just Culture. Indeed, there is simply no understanding of mythology or what myth is in safety which limits Safety’s need for reflection, critique and debate.

The idea of RJ and Restorative Practices has been about for over 70 years ago as part of the reconciliation process and truth telling in South Africa. Its modern usage can be anchored back to Eglash who described three different approaches to Justice namely: retributive justice (based on punishment) distributive justice (involving therapeutic treatment of offenders) and restorative justice, based on restitution with input from victims and offenders. The idea emerged as an approach based in the criminal justice system, social work, schooling and Indigenous communities (I have worked in all four systems).

It is questionable that such an idea should be brought into workplaces, particularly as a solution to under reporting and an approach to Safety.

Despite those presenting Restorative Justice as a noble, moral and superior ethic, such is not the case but none of the evidence against RJ or JC are presented in the literature by Safety. Let’s explore just ten problems associated with the idea of RJ:

 

 

1. Even if the ethic of Restorative Justice is adopted it requires extensive education and expertise to facilitate restorative practices. This is often not done well and when attempted backfires terribly. Given the mono-disciplinary approach of Safety to risk and its disastrous curriculum, the idea that advisors in safety could facilitate restorative practices is nonsense.

 

2. The idea and practices of RJ require significant sacrifices and trade-offs from victims and associated groups that have been harmed. The idea of RJ assumes a great sacrifice in ‘grace’ from those harmed and this is rarely discussed.

 

3. RJ has not performed well in the schooling system (https://drprather.com/2023/12/18/the-misuse-of-restorative-justice/) creating as many problems as it tries to solve. As Prather explains:

They had the presence of mind and love for their child to give them something better. Sadly, because Restorative Justice is a motivating factor in these schools, the teachers and leaders don’t challenge the student, don’t hold the child accountable for unacceptable behaviour, and overall think that they are somehow restoring the child, by not holding them to a high standard. This is not RESTORATIVE, but it is DESTRUCTIVE. It is destructive because in this really subtle way, it’s telling the children that they are allowed to take on the characteristics of some of the criminals that may live in the neighbourhood they are trying to escape!

 

4. The idea that forgiveness for individuals assists reporting is only based on the restributive/restorative binary model. It does not necessarily follow that retributive justice suppresses reporting rather, it depends in how retributive practices are practiced. There are alternative approaches to both Justice and Culture not countenanced by the Just Culture myth.

 

5. The idea of asking ‘what’ rather than ‘who’ is to blame, is simply a linguistic/grammar shifting exercise allowing many executives ‘off the hook’. In Safety Law and Regulation this is the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU). Thus, the idea of RJ contradicts the Safety Act and Regulation and misses the point of ALARP and Due Diligence. Much of the discourse in JC involves little more than linguistic gibbeldygook.

 

6. Demsas (https://www.vox.com/22979070/restorative-justice-forgiveness-limits-promise) also highlights a number of problems, these are:

 

• While forgiveness is widely seen as both virtuous and healing, the specter of forgiveness that hangs above restorative justice proceedings can be a hollow and fragile imitation of the real thing, and it carries with it the potential to reinforce cycles of violence.

 

• Restorative justice is perhaps overly optimistic about what it expects. It imagines a world where victims can be magnanimous about some of the most heinous transgressions, guilty offenders can be truly apologetic, and the broader community is positioned and able to help both parties.

 

• It’s so important to disentangle this assumption or this requirement that people assume it’s necessary for restorative justice to equal forgiveness. There is no expectation that at the end of this it becomes this huge moment of forgiveness.

 

• Forgiving under government pressure is not really forgiveness, and it places further burdens on people already victimized,” former Harvard Law School dean Martha Minow wrote in her book When Should Law Forgive?

 

• Some research has shown that in these communal conference situations, victims will say they forgive the offender simply to avoid the embarrassment of not doing so.

 

• At its root, forgiveness is about letting go of justified negative emotions and a desire for retribution. It is also about giving up a certain form of social power that victims hold.

 

• Expectations of forgiveness are raced and gendered … they’re also about class. They’re about power, but that’s partly because forgiveness is one of the powers of the weak. To claim the ability to forgive — and let’s be clear, to not forgive — is to claim the position of equality and dignity. And that’s a power that we shouldn’t actually ever take away from people.

 

• We tend to think of forgiveness in very transactional, dyadic terms,” she adds, “but often it’s the broader community that’s playing a very important role both in bolstering the wronged party and in validating that what was done counted as a wrong. If that is lacking, Carse argues, and you have a culture that valorises forgiveness, it leads to isolation of the wronged party — creating a “toxic” situation.

 

7. If we’re going to think about forgiveness in terms of RJ, the only morally and most importantly, politically careful way, to do that is to recognize the legitimacy of the ‘unforgiving victim’.

 

8. MacLachlan told Vox. ‘Not forgiving is a legitimate response to being seriously harmed’.

 

9. The Gaudreault paper (http://www.antoniocasella.eu/restorative/Gaudreault_2005.pdf) on the limits of Restorative Justice is worth exploring. In the safety industry, and the workplace, where serious harm is common, such an idea has enormous implications for those who are related to the loss and change of life and the huge financial incentives for executives to cover up culpability.

 

10. Lyubansky (https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/between-the-lines/201903/nine-criticisms-of-school-restorative-justice) documents many practical problems associated with Restorative Justice. There are significant problems hidden in RJ that require resources, time, methodology and methods, that are not articulated by the Just Culture discourse in safety. Indeed, Dekker in particular avoids any commitment to method.

 

These are just a few of the critical issues associated with the idea of RJ. In Safety, without a clearly articulated ethic of risk, it is not likely that the methods of RJ can be transferred from the criminal and community sector to the work/safety sector. Indeed, without a mature understanding of culture or justice, it is most likely that Just Culture will be just another safety fad.

Having worked in the criminal justice system, youth detention system, children-at-risk sectors, family services, community services and schooling, I can personally testify that many of the ideas put forward by proponents of RJ and JC are naive, simplistic and impractical. Indeed, the ideas presented by the Just Culture myth particularly, lack balance, ethical diversity and a Transdisciplinary perspective. Moreso, there are other models of ethics not proposed in traditional Safety (such as those offered by Dekker, the AIHS and HOP) that offer: diversity, Transdisciplinarity, dialectic practical methods and meaningful alternatives to RJ and are explored nowhere in the safety sector.

These are explored in the last section of my current book The Ethics of Risk, A Transdisciplinary-Semiotic View, due for release as a free download later this year.