Restorative Justice

• Restorative Justice


  Focuses on rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims
• Emphasis of restorative justice

  1. Allow offender to see the impact of their crime
  2. Empower survivor by giving them a voice
  3. Less about retribution and more about reparation which is trying to repair the harm caused
• Features of the programme

  • Trained mediator supervises the meeting
  • Offender voluntarily meets victim
  • Victim is given opportunity to confront offender and explain how it impacted them
  • Active involvement from both parties
• Sentencing and Restitution

  • May be done to help with an offenders sentence and reducing it
  • Restitution is a monetary payment by an offender to the survivor for the harm resulting in the incident
  • It could also be the offender paying back in an emotional sense by giving the victim their confidence back
• AO3 Restorative Justice: Needs of the survivor

  • The results of a 7 year research project found that 85% of victims were satisfied and 78% would recommend to others
  • 60% said it made them feel better about the incident giving them closure
  • Restorative justice achieves some of its aims
• AO3 Restorative Justice: Recidivism

  • It leads to a decrease in the rates of offending
  • Meta-analysis of 10 studies compared face to face restorative justice schemes compared to custodial sentencing
  • The restorative justice group were significantly less likely to reoffend
  • The reduction was larger on burglary crimes for adult offenders
• AO3 Restorative Justice: Abusing the system

  • Offenders may abuse the system
  • Success of restorative justice may be due to an offender's intentions being honourable and they must genuinely want to change
  • Some offenders may do restorative justice for their own gains and not because they learn their lesson
  • Not all offenders may benefit
• AO3 Restorative Justice: Domestic Violence

  • In domestic violence cases restorative justice may not be the best option
  • The power imbalance between the victim and offender may put pressure on victim to go along with it when they do not want to
  • However others argue it has positive results especially in intimate partner violence where couples decide to stay together