Bridging police and communities through relationship: the importance of a theoretical foundation for restorative policing

Various models of policing have been studied in the past, but have primarily focused on practice. The current paper applies Llewellyn’s integration of relational theory and restorative justice to the notion of restorative policing. The paper explores how several demographic factors, police organisational support and theoretical constructs associated with relational theory influence the willingness of police officers (n = 296) to engage in practices associated with a restorative approach to policing. The current analytic results evidence relational theory as providing a previously absent and untested theoretical foundation within the discussion of restorative policing.