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Restorative Justice: Refocusing on Stakeholders

Victim and Offender Awareness

"The restorative justice movement originally began as an effort to rethink the needs which crimes create, as well as the roles implicit in crimes," (Zehr 14).

The quotation above from Zehr's The Little Book of Restorative Justice indicates the original aim of restorative justice. The criminal justice focuses on what laws were broken by offenders, and do offenders get the deserved punishments. It does not really care much about interrelationship within the stakeholders of the crime or what effect will the crime and incarceration will bring to stakeholders. However, restorative justice addresses needs ans obligations on every stakeholders. It aims to disclose the truth and real reasons behind a crime. Instead of preventing the similar situation by punishment, restorative justice starts from inside and repairs the relationships between related parties.

The most directly linked parties in a crime are victim and offender. Relationships among them should be repaired in the first place.

"Victims often feel ignored, neglected, or even abused by the justice process. This results in part from the legal definition of crime, which does not include victims," (Zehr 15).

The harmed party in a crime is often ignored. They should be cared with priority as they have taken the harm and even been damaged probably both inside and outside. As vulnerable groups, victims just want equality and their rights, including access to information and truth, sense of empowerment, and restitution&vindication. Simply sending offenders into prison is not what they want. Their true desires are fairness for now and guarantee for future.

"Little in the process encourages offenders to understand the consequences of their actions or to empathize with victims... Offenders are discouraged from acknowledging their responsibility and are given little opportunity to act on this responsibility in concrete ways," (Zehr 16).

Under criminal justice, people who made mistakes will all end up incarceration, no matter how innocent the truth can be.

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.

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"The restorative justice movement originally began as an effort to rethink the needs which crimes create, as well as the roles implicit in crimes,"​​​​​ (Zehr 14).

"Victims often feel ignored, neglected, or even abused by the justice process. This results in part from the legal definition of crime, which does not include victims," (Zehr 15).

"Little in the process encourages offenders to understand the consequences of their actions or to empathize with victims... Offenders are discouraged from acknowledging their responsibility and are given little opportunity to act on this responsibility in concrete ways," (Zehr 16).

This page has paths:

Contents of this path:

"The restorative justice movement originally began as an effort to rethink the needs which crimes create, as well as the roles implicit in crimes," (Zehr 14).