What Restorative Justice IS:
Restorative justice emphasizes the importance of elevating
the role of crime victims and
community members through more active involvement in the
justice process, holding offenders
directly accountable to the people and communities they
have violated, restoring the emotional and
material losses of victims, and providing a range of opportunities
for dialogue, negotiation, and
problem solving, whenever possible, which can lead to
a greater sense of community safety, social
harmony, and peace for all involved.
Mark Umbreit, U. of Minnesota
The roots of what has come to be called restorative justice
run deep into our history and into the
strengths of diverse cultures from around the world. As
articulated by Howard Zehr (1990), Daniel
Van Ness and Karen Heetderks Strong (1997), Kay Pranis
(1998), and others, restorative justice
requires that we look at crime as causing harm and injury
to the relationships that bind our families,
neighborhoods, and communities together. Van Ness and
Heetderks Strong specifically suggested
that if crime causes injury, justice ought to be about
repairing that harm. Therefore, the process of
justice must become one in which the following things
happen:
• Victims and the community (those
harmed by crime) play a much greater role in response
to crime.
• The resources of the system are focused on determining
who was harmed (vs. what law
was broken), who is responsible for repairing the harm
(vs. placing blame), and what steps
need to be taken to repair the harm (vs. inflicting punishment).
• The strategies of justice are aimed at “re-weaving
the fabric” of the family, community, and
relationships that ultimately form the best crime-prevention
strategy in the first place.
Moeser, J. P.
Our current system is retributive: crime committed against
the state = Punishment
A restorative justice lens: crime committed against victim
and community = Punishment + Accountability
What Restorative Justice is NOT:
A restorative approach does NOT take away punishment;
it adds accountability.
Punishment
1: the act of punishing
2 a: suffering, pain, or loss that serves as retribution
b : a penalty inflicted on an offender through judicial
procedure
3 : severe, rough, or disastrous treatment
Accountability
1: the quality or state of being accountable; especially:
an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility
or to account for one's actions.
** Restorative Justice involves numerous practices and
principles which can hardly be fully addressed in a one
page document. This page is intended to give a very brief
synopsis and is hardly a full picture of what restorative
justice looks like. Here are several helpful websites
that I would strongly encourage you to look at:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/courts/restorative-justice/welcome.htm
http://www.emu.edu/cjp/restorative-justice/
http://www.restorativejustice.org/
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