Restorative Justice Flashcards
What does restorative justice aim to do
To help rebuild relationships between the offender, victim, their family and the community at large to improve the experience for the victim and encourage offender to take responsibility for their crime
Who does restorative justice change the emphasis to
-to the individual to provide a healing process so is more about reparations (making amends) than retribution (punishment)
-focuses on the victim and their recovery and offender and their rehabilitation
Outline process of RJ
-supervised meeting between the two parties is organised in non court room setting
-attendance voluntary and meeting led by trained mediator
-victim given the opportunity to confront offender and explain how incident affected them
-offender can see consequence of their actions including emotional distress caused
-active rather than passive involvement of all parties in the process
-focus on positive outcomes for survivors and those who engaged in wrong doing
What do variations of RJ involve
Do not all involve face to face encounters between offender and victim
-offender may make some financial restitution to victim which may reflect psychological/physical damage done in case of a break in
Expand on limitation that success hinges upon extent to which they feel remorse for their actions
-danger that some offenders may sign up for the scheme to avoid prison/for the promise of a reduced sentence rather than a genuine willingness to want to make amends to the victim
-may not impact recidivism when ppts do not agree to take part with the best of intentions which reduces effectiveness
Expand on limitation that it is expensive and there are high dropout rates
-specialist professionals who are trained to act as intermediate in restorative justice are expensive
-often suffer from high drop out rates as offender/victim may lose their nerve prior to the scheduled meeting and withdraw from the scheme
-not accessible to all which reduces rehabilitative effects
Expand on limitation that may not be possible to use for all crime types
-feminist commentators have called for ban on the use of restorative justice in domestic violence cases due to power imbalance between abuser and the abused and because the wider community often resorts to blaming the victim
-limits it’s effectiveness in dealing with offending behaviour and may do more harm than good in some cases
Expand on limitation that RJ doesn’t tend to receive much public support
-alternatives to custodial sentencing are often regarded as soft options which has been echoed by politicians who are keen to convince the electorate they are tough on crime
-public and political opinion against these approaches may limit their use and funding options available
-potentially not best option as most individuals seek retribution
