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Restorative Justice Explained

Restorative justice is an alternative framework for criminal justice that focuses on the harm done to victims and communities by criminal acts, rather than solely on punishing the offender. It aims to involve all stakeholders - victims, offenders, and community members - in addressing the obligations created by the criminal act and repairing the relationships and community ties damaged by the crime. The three pillars of restorative justice are addressing harms and needs, enforcing obligations to make amends, and engaging all affected parties.

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Reveille Laguesma Domingo
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371 views6 pages

Restorative Justice Explained

Restorative justice is an alternative framework for criminal justice that focuses on the harm done to victims and communities by criminal acts, rather than solely on punishing the offender. It aims to involve all stakeholders - victims, offenders, and community members - in addressing the obligations created by the criminal act and repairing the relationships and community ties damaged by the crime. The three pillars of restorative justice are addressing harms and needs, enforcing obligations to make amends, and engaging all affected parties.

Uploaded by

Reveille Laguesma Domingo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Notes on Restorative Justice

Restorative Justice
- alternative framework for thinking about wrongdoing

Crime has not only a public dimension but also a private dimension, more
accurately termed societal dimension.

Restorative Justice is not


1. primarily about forgiveness
2. mediation - acknowledgment of wrongdoing
3. primarily designed to reduce recidivism (expected byproduct)
4. a particular program or blueprint - compass not a map
5. primarily intended for minor offenses or first-time offenders -
more impact on severe cases
6. a new or North American development - Mennonite communities in
1970s applied faith and peace perspective to criminal justice
7. neither a panacea nor necessarily a replacement for the legal
system - a restoratively-oriented Western legal system is needed as backup
and as guardian of basic human rights.
8. necessarily the opposite of retribution

Restorative justice is concerned about needs and roles.


- it expands the circle of stakeholders, beyond just the government and the
offender, to also include the victims and community members.

Victims
Four Types of Neglected Needs:
1. Information
2. Truth-telling - to transcend the experience of the crime
3. Empowerment - involvement in the case as it goes through the justice
system
4. Restitution or vindication - when an offender makes an effort to make
right the harm, it is a way of taking responsibility

Offenders
- offender accountability
- punishment is not real accountability

Community
- when the State takes over in our name, it undermines our sense of
community
- impacted by crime
- stakeholders as secondary victims
- provide a forum

Crime is a violation of people and of interpersonal relationships.

Violations create obligations.

The central obligation is to put right the wrongs.


Crime represents damaged relationships: damaged relationships are both a
cause and an effect of a crime.

The harm of one is the harm of all - a harm such as crime ripples out to disrupt
the whole web.

Wrongdoing is often a symptom that something is out of balance in the web.


- make amends
3 Pillars of Restorative Justice
- harms and needs
- obligations (to put right)
- engagement (of stakeholders)

Restorative justice views crime first of all as harm done to people and
communities.
- victim-oriented approach

All violence is an effort to achieve justice or to undo injustice. - James Gilligan


- to undo a sense of victimization
- offenders as victims

Unresolved trauma tends to be re-enacted. - Sandra Bloom


Appreciation for Particularity
- appreciating diversity
- restorative justice is respect
victim and offender both gain a sense of closure, and both are
reintegrated into the community.

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