restorative justice Flashcards
AO1
Restorative justice programmes is an attempt to rehabilitate the offender by getting them to cognitively understand the effect their crime has had on the victim and society. This could be by direct reconciliation with the victim or in paying back the victim or wider society. This process “restores” what the offender harmed.
Meeting: Victim and offender take part in a meeting supervised by a trained mediator.
This meeting is collaborative, and the victim is given the opportunity to explain the criminal the harm caused to them. The offender is encouraged to take responsibility.
Reparation: The offender demonstrates acceptance of responsibility by in some way repaying, this could be a cash payment, or it could be a form community service.
Restitution-financial, practical(repairing damage), emotional(help victim build confidence)
Restorative justice programmes share the same key features:
• Trained mediator supervises the meeting.
Non-courtroom setting where offenders voluntarily meet with survivors).
• Can be face-to-face meeting or conducted remotely via video link.
• The survivor is given the opportunity to confront the offender and explain how the incident affected them. This enables the offender to comprehend the consequences of their actions, including the emotional distress it caused.
• It is important that there is active rather than passive involvement of all parties in the process wherever possible.
-May be given as alternative to prison or reduce prison sentence
Three types of restitution:
-Financial restitution
-Practical restitution-repair damaged property
-emotional restitution-support healing process by helping to rebuild survivors confidence.
strength
The restorative justice Council (Shapland et al., 2008) reported the results of a seven-year research project in which 85% of survivors reported satisfaction with the process of meeting their offender face-to-face and 78% would recommend it to other people experiencing a similar situation. 60% of survivors felt the process had made them feel better about the incident enabling them to feel closure and move on and only 2% said it made them feel worse. This suggests that restorative justice achieves some of its aims, helping survivors of crime cope with the aftermath of the incident and has positive outcomes long term.
However not all findings have been overwhelmingly positive. Wood and Suzuki (2016) argue that restorative processes are not as survivor focused as often reported in surveys. Restorative justice processes can become distorted, such as when survivors of crime are used as a way of helping to rehabilitate offenders, rather than being helped themselves. This suggests that the needs of a survivor and restorative justice may be seen as secondary to the need to rehabilitate offenders.
strength
A further strength is that restorative justice seems to lead to a decrease in rates of reoffending. A meta-analysis of 10 studies by Heather Strand et al.
(2013) compared offenders who experienced face-to-face restorative justice schemes with those who just experienced a custodial sentencing, and it was found that the restorative justice group was significantly less likely to reoffend. This reduction was larger in offenders convicted of violent crime than crimes against property. Similarly, a review of 24 published studies by Kristin Bain (2012) found lower recidivism rates with adult offenders, especially when using one-to-one contact rather than general community involvement. This suggests that restorative justice has a positive impact on reoffending, maybe more so for specific types of offence and specific approaches.
Limitation
Finally, despite the positive results outlined above, it must also be said that the success of restorative justice programs hinges on offenders taking part because they genuinely regret the hurt caused and they want to make amends. However, van Gijseghem (2003) suggests that offenders may use restorative justice for all kinds of reasons for example avoiding punishment, playing down their faults, even taking pride in their relationship with the survivor. This would explain why not all offenders ultimately benefit from restorative justice and go on to reoffend.
