AO3

• Restorative justice ensures the community sees that the wrong against the community is rectified
• Miers et al examined the entent to which victims felt happy: majority were happy with outcome but some were cynical about offender's sincerity and motivation to take part ie doing it to reduce their sentence, some also found it made uncomfy feeling resurface and some find it intimidating so some offenders sign up to avoid prison rather than genuine willingness to make amends
• Victim may also have ulterior motive: seek revenge or retribution of their own
• Sherman et al found four face to face restorative justice systems were successful in victims feeling less angry, self-blaming and more forgiving. This means it can work as a policy for reducing harm to victims
• Considerably cheaper than custodial sentence so popular option, and can potentially be psychologically helpful to the victim 
• Soft option so tend not to recieve much public support
• Not used in all cases as there is a self-selection bias in that both parties must be willing to take part limiting the application of this type of punishment
• High levels of drop out, both may find it harder to complete than they originally thought, and may also not be fulfilling what the victim wants to achieve