AO3

• Strength - benefits to the victim

  • Gives victim a greater voice in the criminal justice system
  • Develop an understanding of why the crime was committed
  • Empowerment in terms of a sense of personal power
  • Enable them to put crime behind them i.e. why they were targeted - acts as closure
• Strength - benefit to the offender

  • Develop an understanding of the effect of their actions
  • Opportunity to apologise and accept responsibility
  • Opportunity to repair the harm done as a result of the crime
  • Opportunity to address and heal the underlying issues and the opportunity to change
• Strength - Benefits to the wider community and economy

  • Shows the community that offenders are making up for their actions so gives sense of retribution
  • Restorative justice reduces the frequency of reoffending, so community is safer
  • Opportunity to (re)build a sense of community and mutual accountability
  • Saves money - £8 in savings to the criminal justice system for every £1 spent on restorative justice
• Weakness - Feminist critique

  The organisation Women’s Aid have called for a legislative ban on the use of restorative justice in domestic violence cases - their concerns relate to the power imbalance in the relationship between the abuser and the abused, and the fact that the wider community often resort to blaming the victim
• Weakness - Soft Option

  Alternatives to custodial sentencing tend to not receive much blip support. They are often regarded as soft options, and these sentiments tend to be echoed by politician, ken o convince the electorate they are ‘tough on crime’ (Davies and Raymond 2000)
• Weakness - Relies on offender showing remorse

  The success of RJ may depend on the extent to which the offender feels remorse for their actions. However, if there is a danger that some offenders may ‘sign up’ for the scheme to avoid prison, or for the promise of a reduced sentence, rather than a genuine willingness to want to make amends to the victim. The victim may also seek revenge or retribution of their own. Thus, restorative justice programmes may not lead to positive outcomes when pps dont agree to take part with the best intentions
• Strength - Diversity of programmes

  RJ has a degree of flexibility to it in a way where programmes can be administered and the term itself covers a wide range of possible applications (including schools and hospitals). This is positive in the sense that schemes can be adapted and tailored to the needs of the individual situation, however, this does present difficulties in terms of drawing general conclusions about the effectiveness of the approach
• Strength - money saving, Joanna Shapland et al (2007)

  7-year funded research project concluded that every £1 spent on RJ would save the criminal justice system £8 through reduced recidivism
• Weakness - expensive (extended from Shapland)

  The meeting between victim and offender may be an emotionally charged affair, requiring the input of a skilled and experienced individual to mediate. Specialist professionals are likely to be expensive. Plus, RJ programmes often suffer from high dropout rates as offender or victim may ‘lose their nerve’ prior to the scheduled meeting and withdraw from the scheme. Therefore, in practice, it may not always be the best and most cost effective solution.