What is Restorative Justice?
-
Is a different way of thinking about crime and our response to crimes.
-
Focuses on the harm caused by crime: repairing the harm done to victims and reducing future harm by preventing crime.
-
Requires offenders to take responsibility for their actions and for the harm they have caused.
-
Seeks redress for victims, recompense by offenders, and reintegration of both within the community
-
Is achieved through a cooperative effort by communities and the government.
Principles of Restorative Justice
- 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.
- Government's role is to preserve a just public order, and the community's is to build and maintain a just peace.
Practices and programs reflecting restorative purposes will respond to crime by:
- identifying and taking steps to repair harm;
- involving all stakeholders; and
- transforming the traditional relationship between communities and their governments in responding to crime.
Restorative programs are characterized by four key values:
- Encounter: creates opportunities for victims, offenders and community members wgo want to do so to meet to discuss the crime and its aftermath.
- Amends: expects offenders to take steps to repair the harm they have caused
- Reintegration: seeks to restore victims and offenders as productive members of society.
- Inclusion: provides opportunities for parties with a stake in a specific crime to participate in its resolution.
(Source: Daniel van Ness, "Introduction to Restorative Justice" in A Pocket Guide to Restorative Justice and Alternatives to Imprisonment (Manila: Coalition Against Death Penalty, 2010).
