The content within this scalar book has been developed and guided by the literature and scholarly sources discussed in the SAGES course The Effects of Race, Class, and Education: A Dialogue on Current Issues. The course focuses partially on the shortcomings of the criminal justice system and how negatively mass incarceration impacts society. After discussing and understanding the problems with current methods of crime response, the course began to turn towards the solution restorative justice provides. Acknowledging the faults within the current criminal justice system and the system of mass incarceration is necessary in order to fully understand why society and the criminal justice system has a need for restorative justice programs.

Mass incarceration's aim to create and restore a safe society that is protected from violence and crime is juxtaposed by prisons' facilitation of prisoner mistreatment, abuse, and neglect. Without giving prisoners the proper rehabilitative and reformative resources while in prison, they are almost always being released into similar situations and positions in society that got them originally incarcerated. Restorative justice offers a solution to the misguided and corrupted paths of crime response. By involving outside stakeholders, such as family and community members, giving those responsible for crime the opportunity to converse with those they harmed, and by promoting programs in prison for successful re-entry into society, those incarcerated are capable of reform and of building a prosperous life outside of prison that will decrease their likeliness of being re-incarcerated. Restorative justice provides individuals affected by crime with the comfort of knowing more about why the crime against them occurred and what is being done to ensure the act of violence never happens to anyone again. While attending to the needs of those harmed by crime, restorative justice greatly benefits those responsible for the crime by giving them the ability to understand the negative impact their crime has left on victims and other stakeholders, while also allowing them to take true accountability for their actions in a substantial and meaningful way that prison does not provide. 

This book focuses on the stakeholders involved in restorative justice -- the people who are essential in the process of healing and repairing the harm from crime and those able to give prisoners the environment and opportunities that best encourage accountability and rehabilitation. Restorative justice redefines and expands upon who the criminal justice system has claimed necessary to the process of crime response. Howard Zehr, a foundational practitioner and theorist of Restorative Justice, elaborates about how “Restorative justice expands the circle of stakeholders -- those with a stake or standing in the event or the case -- beyond just the government and the offending party to include those who have been directly victimized as well as community members,” (Zehr 21). Restorative justice aims to break the restrictions and limitations of the criminal justice system in order to properly meet the needs of all valid and essential parties involved in a crime. Encouraging and allowing entire communities, figures of authority in the legal system, and both those who are harmed by and responsible for crime to actively participate in the justice process will provide a greater sense of understanding and closure to those who need it most.


References:

Zehr, Howard. The Little Book of Restorative Justice: A Bestselling Book by One of the Founders of the Movement. Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2014.