Question

Is Restorative Justice “weak” on crime? How so? Can we overcome that perception? How?

Answer 1

Restorative Justice is a system of criminal justice which focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large.

There are mixed sentiments about what restorative justice has come to represent. For some, restorative justice promotes a balanced view of crime as an event affecting a number of different people. A justice practice should therefore encourage the direct involvement of these parties, such as promoting needed dialogue between victim and offender. Where the contemporary justice system does not work well for victims and others, restorative justice promotes needed change. Restorative justice acknowledges that crime is personal: Adherents of this view often suggest that assisting victims, addressing their needs and helping them through their problems, and allowing and encouraging victims to participate in processes and outcomes that affect them, are primary aims of restorative justice. For some victims, working with offenders has been an essential element of their own healing journey.

But the idea of an offender-oriented restorative justice colors other impressions of its practice. Very often, restorative justice not only reflects offender needs— making amends, and changing and rehabilitating offenders—but also is driven by such needs. Restorative justice may be offender initiated, and may be oriented to an offender timeline. Such needs and practices may not be compatible with victim needs, however. Where offenders are provided with help to change their lives, but victims are not provided help to deal with their trauma, victims feel betrayed by the offender orientation of restorative justice.

Restorative justice may also promote unrealistic or unreasonable goals. Where restorative justice appears to go hand-in-hand with expectations for reduced offender penalties, victims may perceive restorative justice as a way out for offenders whose primary motivation might be to avoid responsibility or pain. It is often the expectation of restorative justice programs that offenders will offer genuine apologies for what they have done. But where offenders are not sorry for what they have done, victims may feel harmed again for this failure of justice. Similarly, restorative justice appears to imply that victims are in some sense obligated to assist offenders. This distorts the hope of victims to assist themselves through restorative justice processes. Victim participation for the purpose of offender rehabilitation may be at least an unreasonable burden, if not outright objectionable. Ideas that restorative justice is a panacea are immodest, and without merit.