Restorative Justice Programs
What is Restorative Justice?
Restorative Justice is a new movement in the fields of victimology and criminology. Acknowledging that crime causes injury to people and communities, it insists that justice repair those injuries and that the parties be permitted to participate in that process. Restorative Justice programs, therefore, enable the victim, the offender and affected members of the community to be directly involved in responding to the crime. They become central to the criminal justice process, with State and legal professionals becoming facilitators of a system that aims at offender accountability, reparation to the victim and full participation by the victim, offender and community. The restorative process of involving all parties is fundamental to achieving the restorative outcome of reparation and peace. A definition of restorative justice, increasingly used internationally, emphasizes both the process and the outcome:
Restorative justice is a process whereby parties with a stake in a specific offence resolve collectively how to deal with the aftermath of the offence and its implications for the future.
Restorative justice is different from contemporary criminal justice in several ways. First, it views criminal acts more comprehensively -- rather than defining crime as simply lawbreaking, it recognizes that offenders harm victims, communities and even themselves. Second, it involves more parties in responding to crime -- rather than giving key roles only to government and the offender, it includes victims and communities as well. Finally, it measures success differently -- rather than measuring how much punishment is inflicted, it measures how many harms are repaired or prevented.