Because European colonialists saw no jails, police, lawyers, judges, or courts in African indigenous societies, they mistakenly concluded these cultures had no way to address social conflict and wrongdoing. […] In Western culture, we are socialized to believe that the desire to inflict counterviolence upon or retaliate against someone who has hurt us or a loved one is innate and that justice has always been done and will always be done in this way. In fact, far from universal or natural, this adversarial vision of justice is a relatively recent cultural and historical construction, arising around AD 1200 with the dawning of the nation-state and racial capitalism. Though restorative justice is new to Western jurisprudence, it is not at all new in the broader sweep of human history. For most of human history, reconciliation and restitution to victims and their kin took precedence over vengeance. This is because restoring social peace and avoiding blood feuds were paramount social concerns. Restitution and reconciliation, not punishment, were overarching aspirations. Indeed, in most indigenous languages, there is no word for prison. […] Restorative justice views a vengeful and punitive response to harm unacceptable, because, on a social level, it sets into motion negative feedback loops of violence and counterviolence. Punishment, the equivalent of officially sanctioned vengeance, is a mere variant of the original harm, replicating and reproducing it, resulting in the destruction of community safety nets and social breakdown. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves the whole world blind and toothless. On an individual level, a punitive, vengeful response harms us psychologically. It locks us into the past and tethers us to disabling definitions of ourselves and an overidentification with the pain, mistaking it for who we truly are. This attachment to suffering blocks the path to healing, magnifies vengeance, and expands pain. Imprisoned by the pain and the past, the harmed party experiences victimization a second time, but this time, it is self-inflicted. It is scientifically documented that hatred and anger eat away at our well-being, on physical and emotional levels. This is not to say that persons harmed must forgive; it is rather an invitation to transform punitive and vengeful responses. It is important that survivors feel no pressure to forgive; coercion has no place in restorative justice processes. Contrary to popular notions that conflate forgiveness with restorative justice, forgiveness is neither required nor guaranteed in restorative justice processes. Nor is it a determinant of success. Success happens in well-prepared and well-facilitated encounters where persons who have been harmed feel safe enough to freely share their stories and express their needs and persons causing harm tell the truth, express remorse and responsibility, and offer reparations. Success continues when all participants together fashion a plan to repair harm that is actually carried out. This may — or may not — lead to forgiveness. Either way, restorative justice has done its job.