Child and Youth Restorative Justice in Everyday Life: Beyond the
Formal Ritual Punishment in response to crime and other
wrongdoing is the prevailing practice, not just in criminal
justice systems, but throughout most modern societies.
Punishment is usually seen as the most appropriate response to
crime and to wrongdoing in schools, families, and workplaces.
Those who fail to punish naughty children and offending youths
and adults are often labeled as "permissive." This Punitive-
Permissive Continuum (Figure 1) reflects the current popular
view, but offers a very confined perspective and limited choice-
to punish or not to punish. The only other variable is the
severity of the punishment, such as the amount of the fine or
the length of the sentence. However, we can construct a more
useful view of social control by looking at the interplay of two
more comprehensive variables: control and support. We define
control as discipline or limit setting and support as
encouragement or nurturing. Now we can combine a high