Restorative Justice Presentation

ESTORATIVE

USTICE- is a response to crime that focuses

on restoring the losses suffered by victims, holding offenders

accountable for the harm they have caused, and building peace within

communities.

1. How is Restorative Justice different from what we do now?

It views criminal acts more comprehensively, rather than

defining crime only as lawbreaking. It recognizes

that offenders harm victims, communities and even

themselves.

1. How is Restorative Justice…

It involves more parties, rather than giving key roles only to government and offender. It includes victims and communities as well.

It measures success differently, rather than measuring how much punishment has been inflicted. It

measures how much harm has been repaired or prevented.

1. How is Restorative Justice…

It recognizes the importance of community involvement and

initiative in responding to and reducing crime, rather than

leaving the problem of crime to the government alone.

It emphasizes victim recovery through redress, vindication, and healing.

2. How does Restorative Justice respond to crime?

It emphasizes recompense by the offender through reparation,

fair treatment, and rehabilitation.

It establishes processes through which parties are able to discover the truth about what happened and the harms that resulted, to identify the injustices involved and to agree on future actions to address those harms.

2. How does Restorative Justice…

It establishes evaluation processes through which the community and

government may consider whether new strategies to prevent crime are needed.

It builds on the strengths of community and government. The

community can build peace through strong, inclusive and righteous

relationships; the government can bring order through fair, effective

and parsimonious use of force.

3. How does Restorative Justice seek to prevent crime?

It emphasizes the need to repair past harms in order to prepare for the future.


It seeks to reconcile offenders with those they have harmed.

It helps communities learn to reintegrate victims and offenders.

It is a different way of thinking about crime and our response to it.


It focuses on the harm caused by crime: repairing the harm done to the victims and

reducing future harm by preventing crime.

It requires offenders to take responsibility for their actions and for the harm they have caused.


It seeks redress for victims; recompense by offenders, and

reintegration of both within the community.

It is achieved through a cooperative effort by communities and the government.

THREE PRINCIPLES FORM THE FOUNDATION FOR RJ

Justice requires that we work to restore those who have been injured.

Those most directly involved and affected by crime should

have the opportunity to participate fully in the response

if they wish.

THREE PRINCIPLES …

Government’s role is to preserve a just public order, and the community’s is to build and maintain a just peace.

RESTORATIVE PROGRAMS ARE CHARACTERIZED BY FOUR KEY VALUES:

1. Encounter: Create opportunities for victims, offenders and community members who want to do so to meet to discuss the crime and its aftermath.

2. Amends: Expect offenders to take steps to repair the harm they have

caused.

RESTORATIVE PROGRAMS …

3. Reintegration: Seek to restore victims and offenders to whole, contributing members of

society.

4. Inclusion: Provide opportunities for parties with a stake in a specific crime to participate in its resolution.

PROGRAMS IDENTIFIED WITH RESTORATIVE JUSTICE INCLUDE:

Victim offender mediation

Conferencing Circles

Victim assistance

Ex-offender assistance

Restitution

Community Service

HALLMARKS OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICE: THE VICTIM, OFFENDER & COMMUNITY MEETINGS

Victim-offender mediation.

This is a process that provides an interested victim the opportunity to

meet his offender in a safe and structured setting, engaging in a discussion of the crime with the

assistance of a trained mediator.

HALLMARKS … Victim-offender mediation…

The goals of victim-offender mediation include: permitting victims to meet their offenders on a voluntary

basis, encouraging the offender to learn about the crime’s impact and to

take responsibility for the resulting harm, and providing victim and

offender the opportunity to develop a plan that addresses the harm.

HALLMARKS …

This process brings together the victim, offender, and family,

friends and key supporters of both in deciding how to

address the aftermath of the crime.

Family or Community Group Conferencing.

HALLMARKS …

The goals of conferencing include: giving the victim an opportunity to be directly

involved in responding to the crime, increasing the offender’s awareness of the impact of his or her behavior and providing an opportunity to take responsibility for it, engaging the offenders’ support system for making amends and shaping the offender’s future behavior, and allowing the offender

and the victim to connect to key community support.

Family…

HALLMARKS …

This is a process designed to develop consensus among community members, victims, victim supporters,

offenders, offender supporters, judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, police and

court workers on an appropriate sentencing plan that addresses the concerns of all

interested parties.

Peacemaking or Sentencing Circles.

REPAIRING THE HARM CAUSED BY CRIME

Each hallmark of the Restorative Justice processes – victim-offender

mediation, community or family group conferencing, and peacemaking or sentencing circles – ends with an agreement on how the offender will

make amends for the harm caused by the crime.

REPAIRING…

Two traditional criminal justice sanctions are used in restorative responses to crime: restitution and community service.

o Restitution is the payment by an offender of a sum of money to compensate the victim for the financial losses cause by the crime. It is justified in a restorative perspective as a method of holding offenders accountable for their wrongdoing, and as a method of repairing the victim’s injury.

REPAIRING…

o Community service is work performed by an offender for the benefit of the community. It is justified in a restorative perspective as a method of addressing the harm experienced by communities when a crime occurs. However, it can be used instead for retributive reasons or as a means of rehabilitating the offender.

RETRIBUTIVE/RESTORATIVE JUSTICE COMPARED

RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE is a dominant approach to criminal justice, focused on determining what law was broken, who broke it, how they should be punished.

RETRIBUTIVE/RESTORATIVE JUSTICE COMPARED...

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE is a value-based approach to

criminal justice, with a balanced focus on offender, victim and

community. The foundation of restorative justice is to determine

the harm resulting from crime. What needs to be done to repair the harm, who is responsible for

repairing the harm.


OFFENDER AND VICTIM

RETRIBUTIVERETRIBUTIVE RESTORATIVERESTORATIVE

Dependence upon the proxy Dependence upon the proxy professionalsprofessionals

Direct involvement by the Direct involvement by the participantsparticipants

Victims are peripheral to the Victims are peripheral to the processprocess

Victims are central to the Victims are central to the process of resolving a crimeprocess of resolving a crime

Focus on establishing blame, Focus on establishing blame, on guilt, on past. (Did he/she on guilt, on past. (Did he/she do it?)do it?)

Focus on problem solving, Focus on problem solving, on liabilities/obligations, on liabilities/obligations, future (What should be future (What should be done?done?

Response focused on Response focused on offender’s past behavioroffender’s past behavior

Response focused on Response focused on harmful consequences of harmful consequences of offender’s behavior; offender’s behavior; emphasis on the futureemphasis on the future


RELATIONSHIP


Emphasis on Emphasis on adversarial adversarial relationshiprelationship

Emphasis on Emphasis on dialogue and dialogue and negotiationnegotiation


ACCOUNTABILITY


Crime is an individual act with Crime is an individual act with individual responsibilityindividual responsibility

Crime has both individual and Crime has both individual and social dimensions of social dimensions of responsibilityresponsibility

Offender accountability Offender accountability defined as taking punishmentdefined as taking punishment

Accountability defined as Accountability defined as assuming responsibility and assuming responsibility and taking action to repair harmtaking action to repair harm

Punishment is effective. Threat Punishment is effective. Threat of punishment deters crime. of punishment deters crime. Punishment changes behavior.Punishment changes behavior.

Punishment alone is not Punishment alone is not effective in changing behavior effective in changing behavior and is disruptive to community and is disruptive to community harmony and good harmony and good relationshipsrelationships


RELATIONSHIP


Crime is an act against the Crime is an act against the State, a violation of law, an State, a violation of law, an abstract ideaabstract idea

Crime is an act against Crime is an act against another person and the another person and the communitycommunity

Control of crime lies in the Control of crime lies in the criminal justice systemcriminal justice system

Control lies primarily in the Control lies primarily in the communitycommunity

Community on the sideline, Community on the sideline, represented abstractly by the represented abstractly by the StateState

Community as facilitator in the Community as facilitator in the restorative processrestorative process

Restorative Justice Presentation

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