Journal Article

Retributive and Restorative Justice in Kristin Cashore's Graceling Trilogy

Matthews, Corinne

2019

Overview

[...]critics tend to focus on realist novels, overlooking depictions of sexual assault in young adult fantasy. Because many young adult texts about sexual violence go so far as to exclude the rapist from the narrative, they \"lack an appropriate outlet for blame and therefore create rape spaces of female bodies. \"64 However, even by suggesting that Leck's various victims begin by making lists of what Leck has stolen, the resistance group helps give Monseans a starting point. Because the truthseekers function outside the scope of the official legal system, Cashore also models a way in which everyday citizens can begin to develop a system of restorative justice without the cooperation and support of the government. Since most of these revelations come not from the guilty but from their victims, progressing from accusation to a system of restorative justice is difficult—if not impossible—since restorative justice requires the guilty party to first admit their wrongdoing. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, \"The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 1,852 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories\" (Peter Wagner and Wendy Sawyer, \"Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie in 2018,\" The Prison Policy Initiative, 14 Mar. 2018, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2018.html).

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Subject: Cashore, Kristin / Fiction / Imprisonment / Literary criticism / Novels / Plot (Narrative) / Prisons / Rape / Restorative justice / Sex crimes / Sexual consent / Society / Speculative fiction / Young adult literature / Young adults