Restorative justice is a theory of the criminal justice system that focuses on the rehabilitation of the offenders, victims, and community. This fairly new theory is a new way of tackling criminal behavior, because unlike the traditional form of justice that we have become accustomed to restorative justice allows the affected persons of a given crime to be fully involved in the process of justice. Personally, I agree greatly with the concept of restorative justice, because the face to face interactions of victims and offenders can be a powerful way of addressing the material and physical injuries caused by a crime. However, with all the healing that can be achieve using the method of justice, it does have qualities that can cause it to have
Money is everything in today’s world, more money means more power , so corporations for their major contributions to the economy by giving jobs and paying taxes are favoured by judges whilst an individual is nothing to compare, and yet again corporation can afford to hire better lawyers than what an individual could, rarely does it happen that you hear on the news about an individual who beat a corporation in a court debate, also because of the toll and srees that an individual would have to go through in order to beat a corporation in court. Natalie DeFreitas has made numerous points as to why restorative justice as better than/more effective than the current law system here in Canada. The speaker talked about the 70% recurrence of crimes whereas only 15% repeat crimes after restorative justice, Texas’ crime rates and jail enrollment have dropped, the cost of jail enrollment is 115,000 CAD$ for one year per person, whereas restorative justice only costs about 10,000 CAD$ for the same person throughout the same term and how much more effective can restorative justice be with a provided life example of John’s case, the bottom line is that restorative justice reduces crimes, improves the lives of criminals by healing and makes communities a safer
110). According to the author, the aim of restorative justice is to heal communities from an incident where people were harmed and, ideally, help prevent the same thing from happening again. I believe that, there is going to be a higher possibility of crime reduction in schools and in different neighborhood if victims and offenders mediate a restitution agreement to the satisfaction of each other. In conjunction to this, if the government can be more committed in supporting these approaches, I believe that there will be a massive drop in crime
Restorative Justice past practices and activities that are popular within the Restorative justice movement are Prisoner rights and alternatives to prisons, which is a program to change prison condition and minimize incarceration sentencing, Conflict Resolution is a program that creates neighborhood justice centers available to the community. The Victim offender Reconciliation program (VORPs) is a meeting between the victim and the community, Victim-Offender Mediation (VOMS) is mediation between the victim and the offender, Victim Advocacy is the victim rights group which focused on the efforts for restitution for the crime. The family group conferences (FGCs) allow the victim and family and the offenders to meet. The Sentencing Circle includes
Restorative justice is a sentencing model that builds on restitution and community participation in an attempt to make a victim “whole again” (Schmalleger, 2010). Restorative justice can be explained as a form of punishment, which everyone involved or affected by a crime gets a feeling of peace after all if finalized. Both the victim and the offender have to agree to participate in restorative justice. There are needs that have to be met through restorative justice, which are the victim must be
Within the judicial and criminal justice systems, restorative justice is seen as a forward moving process in regards to the way in which the sentencing of offenders is handled (Britto & Reimund, 2013). Restorative justice works to focus on the needs of both the victim and the offender but incorporates the community as well as those who support both the victim and offender (Britto & Reimund, 2013). The approach of restorative justice in not simply a means by which society responds to and reduces crime but instead, provides an equivalently valuable social response to crime (Dancig-Rosenberg and Galt, 2013). Furthermore, the restorative approach places emphasis on the personal and relational harms which were caused by the crime while creating space for dialogue concerning the actual damage, whether directly or
This type of justice system is designed very differently when compared with the retributive justice system. The restorative justice system endeavours to bring the victim and the offender together and allow them to speak with each other in the hopes to support the healing process. It will enable the victims to express themselves to the offender and lets the offender apologize and express their feelings to the victim. The restorative justice system often offers the victims of crime closure. The system encourages both parties to reveal themselves to each other and develop a solution for the future to satisfy both parties involved.
The idea of restorative justice does have defects to it. For example, in cases where there is no particular victim, for example a drug related community case, who is the onus put on for what happens to the offender? And who receives compensation for the crime? The state.
The support for restorative justice stems from a strong commitment to social justice and the notion that the US judicial system must fundamentally change its approach to encourage healing and repair injustice. Focusing on mass imprisonment and punishment helps cause the pain and trouble that people involved in America’s justice system face every day due to the ignorant, constant system that is still
This process will ensure that each offender receives the proper punishment and that the community is satisfied with the decision. The offender-based models, retributive and utilitarian, does not help the victim recover. Restorative justice is designed
Imagine a world where all students cared about each other, well that’s the objective of restorative justice. Restorative justice is a type of disciplinary action use to help heal offender. Restorative justice does this by bringing students, family and teachers into a group and talking about what happened. Restorative justice works because It stops fighting, It it helps students keep their grades up, and students treat each other better. Some may argue that restorative justice doesn 't work because it makes schools look weak.
4 Criticism and Challenges The first point of criticism against victim participation in restorative justice processes arises from scepticism about an apology to the victim as a way of dealing with criminal matters. The perception sometimes exists as to it simply being a way to get away with the crime.106 Members of the public should thus be educated to understand that restorative justice is more than a mere saying sorry, but in the context of victim offender mediation or family group conferences it rather affords the victim the opportunity to confront the child offender with the real and human cost of his or her criminal actions. Another concern deals with the possible secondary victimisation of the victim in the case where the offender pretends
Restorative Justice processes are likely to reduce criminals from repeating offenses, as numerous recidivism studies have demonstrated. Thus, it would be more than justified to employ restorative processes a response to crimes under
Today our justice system has a multitude of options when dealing with those who are convicted of offenses. However, many argue that retributive justice is the only real justice there is. This is mainly because its advantage is that it gives criminals the appropriate punishment that they deserve. The goals of this approach are clear and direct. In his book The Little Book of Restorative Justice, Zehr Howard (2002), illustrates that the central focus of retributive justice is offenders getting what they deserve (p. 30).
The Restorative Justice System focuses on problem solving, liabilities, and obligations. It focuses on the future instead of the past. It would help the boys take responsibility for their actions and be able to restore the crime they committed in the community. The four boys are also first time offenders, which also plays a huge factor because you can see they never intended for what they did to turn out so bad in the end. For the Restorative Justice System you have to be first time offenders so that they are able to help you.
Batley (2005) stated that restorative justice is about restoring, healing and re- integrating victims, offenders, as well as the society and also preventing further harm. In this assignment, I will be discussing approaches to restorative justice and illustrating their advantages and disadvantages to offending. I will also provide the applications of these five approaches of restorative justice which are retributive approach, utilitarian deterrence approach, rehabilitation approach, restitution approach and restorative approach in the given case study. I will then explain my preferred approach to justice through identifying a personal belief or value that underpins my choice.