Chapter 1 introduces the topic of historical abuses of states and churches. The chapter outlines the existing and related conceptions of justice that may inform a response to historical abuses and positions transitional justice as the dominant but flawed approach to addressing the violent aspects of the past. The third section considers the application of these justice approaches to the context of historical abuses of Western states and Christian churches. The final section previews the remaining chapters of the book.

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, underfunded and underregulated systems of public care injured young people. Reflecting on evidence from Australia, Canada, Ireland, and Aotearoa New Zealand, this chapter outlines some of the injuries that survivors experience(d). As a result of their injurious histories, survivor populations are now sharply disadvantaged. Not only do survivors’ multifaceted injuries spur a complex range of redress demands, their resultant disadvantages create accessibility barriers that redress programmes must overcome.

Nations are offering billions of dollars in monetary redress to hundreds of thousands of people who experienced systemic abuse and neglect while in state care. This chapter introduces some of the social, legal, and political difficulties that this developing field of public policy confronts. Monetary redress programmes tend to be expensive, protracted, harmful to survivors, and exposed to damaging public criticism. Defining state redress as a field of public policy, this chapter introduces the cases studied, the book’s methodology, and the overarching prescriptive strategy of enabling survivor choice. Flexible redress programmes provide survivors with different pathways to redress; enabling survivors to select the processes that suit them best.