Notes on Restorative Justice

Restorative Justice
- alternative framework for thinking about wrongdoing

Crime has not only a public dimension but also a private dimension, more
accurately termed societal dimension.

Restorative Justice is not

1. primarily about forgiveness
2. mediation - acknowledgment of wrongdoing
3. primarily designed to reduce recidivism (expected byproduct)
4. a particular program or blueprint - compass not a map
5. primarily intended for minor offenses or first-time offenders -
more impact on severe cases
6. a new or North American development - Mennonite communities in
1970s applied faith and peace perspective to criminal justice
7. neither a panacea nor necessarily a replacement for the legal
system - a restoratively-oriented Western legal system is needed as backup
and as guardian of basic human rights.
8. necessarily the opposite of retribution

Restorative justice is concerned about needs and roles.

- it expands the circle of stakeholders, beyond just the government and the
offender, to also include the victims and community members.

Victims
Four Types of Neglected Needs:
1. Information
2. Truth-telling - to transcend the experience of the crime
3. Empowerment - involvement in the case as it goes through the justice
system
4. Restitution or vindication - when an offender makes an effort to make
right the harm, it is a way of taking responsibility

Offenders
- offender accountability
- punishment is not real accountability

Community
- when the State takes over in our name, it undermines our sense of
community
- impacted by crime
- stakeholders as secondary victims
- provide a forum

Crime is a violation of people and of interpersonal relationships.

Violations create obligations.

The central obligation is to put right the wrongs.

Crime represents damaged relationships: damaged relationships are both a
cause and an effect of a crime.

The harm of one is the harm of all - a harm such as crime ripples out to disrupt
the whole web.

Wrongdoing is often a symptom that something is out of balance in the web.

- make amends
3 Pillars of Restorative Justice
- harms and needs
- obligations (to put right)
- engagement (of stakeholders)

Restorative justice views crime first of all as harm done to people and
communities.
- victim-oriented approach

All violence is an effort to achieve justice or to undo injustice. - James Gilligan

- to undo a sense of victimization
- offenders as victims

Unresolved trauma tends to be re-enacted. - Sandra Bloom

Appreciation for Particularity
- appreciating diversity
- restorative justice is respect
 victim and offender both gain a sense of closure, and both are
reintegrated into the community.