Restorative Justice Case Study

While The Little Book of Restorative Justice for Colleges and Universities has many merits it also posses some off-putting weaknesses. Karp opens his work up for criticism and makes it less likely to be accepted or seen as a serious alternative to the traditional disciplinary systems with the inclusion of frivolous illustrations and talks of the spiritual. The Little Book also lacks much evidence outside of personal testimony or the authors own reasoning —while that can be strong evidence, empirical evidence have a place in this discussion.

To address the increasing recidivism rate among offenders in the juvenile and adult criminal justice system, comprehensive restorative justice programs should expand to a much wider faction of the United States criminal justice system. Programs should be implemented on federal, state, and local levels to effectively and efficiently achieve this goal. The goals that should be strived for must be kept in mind so that adequate progress can be made and so that benchmarks will be met when required. Administrators must not let their restorative justice system fall behind to the point of no return, as many would argue that the current system of criminal justice has. This paper will focus on the requirements for proper management and administration of the proposed solution. The requirements include the skills needed for effective management of the proposal, identifying poor managerial skills and the ways to improve those skills, the necessity of benchmarks and milestones, and reasons that may delay proper implementation.

Restorative justice (RJ) is the practice of trying to restore the victims of harm or trauma back to a state of peace and contentment. It is used to benefit the victims so they can in a way reclaim a part of themselves. Restorative justice has three main models/practices; Victim Offender Conferencing (VOC), Circle Processes, and Family Group Conferences. Victim offender conferencing is the most common application of restorative justice in North America. In, The Little Book of Victim Offender Conferencing, Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz explains, “the victim offender conferencing process brings victims and offenders of crime together in a face-to-face meeting prepared and led by a trained facilitator, often a community volunteer, to talk about the impact of the consequences of the crime.”

It has been three years since James Holmes entered a theatre in Aurora, Colorado and began firing at every person in the theatre. The theatre was showing a debut for “The Dark Knight Rises” when Holmes entered wearing head-to-toe gear and a gas mask. This story rattled the nation as it made movie theatres a thing to fear. Now, three years later, it has been announced that Holmes will spend life in prison (Pearson, 2012). The process of restorative justice was not used in the case itself, but examples of restoration can be seen in areas surrounding the case.

In the April 2, 2011 Redbook Magazine article, " 4 Former Bullies Apologize to Their Victims," author, Jessica Press talked to four women about their past experiences of being bullies in their elementary and high school years. As I read through these women's reasons for bullying all 4 had asked for forgiveness. I felt a reasoning and morality behind the subjects of why they had bullied. I believe that in the world everyone needs to be saved at some point in time. People get upset and bully for reasons not just because they want to be ill-mannered to everyone around them.Jamie Gumieny-Fink had went to 6 different schools before she was 11. Her parents moved around a lot for new jobs and so in order for her feel comfortable with her surroundings

Restorative justice is a comparative newcomer to the world of criminal justice; however restorative justice has been around, ‘officially’- by means of legislation for 14 years, and unofficially (in innovative practice), for longer. The knowledge and skills associated with restorative justice have slowly but surely migrated to other services, such as education, with startling results (Daniels, 2013). With the criminal justice system being so unfair and bias for years maybe even centuries, restorative justice has been bought up as a useful tool for victims and offenders. Plenty of scholarly articles, journals, books, and research have been written about Restorative Justice.

There are two forms of justice that the American society has come to know today. One is the traditional justice system and the other is restorative justice. The first half of this paper will provide an overview of how justice is achieved using the traditional due process system of our criminal justice system. Specifically, I will assess each step of due process, pointing out the possible outcomes of how justice is traditionally attained. I will also provide several examples of how the system has successfully delivered justice to both the offender and the victim(s).

I think that restorative justice programs are a great way to have offenders take responsibility for what they have done and their actions in the future. I feel that it truly helps the victim and the offender heal. Alternative sentencing is also a great way to deal with offenders because it may help them before they go into the prison system. If I were a victim I know I would be hesitant to meet with my offender but I now know that ultimately, it will help me and the offender. I would try to sit face-to-face with them. The benefits would be to get some degree of closure and to help the victims overcome all the fears the offender gave them. Some risks may be losing control or being overcome with anger when they see the offender. Overall I believe

To What Extent Should Restorative Justice be incorporated within the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales? (2500 words)

The textbook, “Restoring Justice: an introduction to restorative justice” by Van Ness and Karen Strong provide the three key principles which govern the implementation of restorative justice found in chapter three. The first principle being that “justice requires work to heal victims, offenders and communities injured in crime” (Ness &Strong, 2015, 45). When crime takes place it not only injuries the victim but the community and the offender as well, each dealing with their personal harm experience from this event. Since all were hurt each deserves to helped and put on the path to gain healing and understanding. The second principle is “victims, offenders and communities should have the opportunity for active involvement in the justice process as early and as fully as wish” (Ness &Strong, 2015, 47). This is a big one, since the government is considered the victim they get to have involvement in the process from day one, having victims participant can help connect the gap in this

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy and restorative justice share similar components. Both are forward planning and goal driven. They rely on the use of strength-based language. The focus is placed on relationship building rather than being paternalistic & adversarial. Both approaches view the person or offender as an empowered individual who is capable of solving their own problems as opposed to being told how to change.

The criminal justice system views any crime as a crime committed against the state and places much emphasis on retribution and paying back to the community, through time, fines or community work. Historically punishment has been a very public affair, which was once a key aspect of the punishment process, through the use of the stocks, dunking chair, pillory, and hangman’s noose, although in today’s society punishment has become a lot more private (Newburn, 2007). However it has been argued that although the debt against the state has been paid, the victim of the crime has been left with no legal input to seek adequate retribution from the offender, leaving the victim perhaps feeling unsatisfied with the criminal justice process.

Restorative justice has some key restorative values that are vital in the restorative justice conference to make the experience ‘restorative’. Concerning addressing victim needs and concerns means for listening, respecting, being non-judgmental, not blaming the victim and apologizing. The RJ system was bought as an alternative to the criminal justice system to give greater emphasis on victim rights and needs, offender accountability and community involvement. Throughout the essay, there will be an insight into how Restorative Justice addresses needs of victims in terms of the different proponents such as Information provided to victim, restitution/compensation, emotional and practical needs met, participation and involvement of victim and protection of victim, which (Wemmers and Marisa, 2002) as essentials to victims participating in the practice. The two countries that will be addressed will have had restorative justice built out of injustices and over-representation of the current criminal justice system to the indigenous peoples of those countries.

Restorative Justice(RJ) is a process in by which it takes an alternative form from the traditional CJS and aims to prompt resolution with offender, victims and the wider community in a safe setting. RJ looks at crime in terms of violation against the community and individual rather than a violation against the law (Gabbay, 2005). As with the traditional CJS, the voices of the victims and offenders are very minimal and not adequately addressed to a large extent; restorative justice centres its main attention on these parties. Since the adoption of RJ practices, there have been different types of RJ created by various different countries that have also resorted to this practice, such as Family Group Conferencing (NZ and Australia) and Sentencing Circles (Canada) and victim-offender mediation. Since, one of the main stakeholders of these conferences are victims, it is vital that their needs and wants are being heard and met and victim satisfaction is also one of the key restorative values in these conferences, thus it is important know whether their needs are being adequately met. This essay will critically discuss the principle of restorative justice, how restorative justice effectively addresses the concerns of victims using examples illustrated from Canada and New Zealand and the limitations of RJ in certain crime cases in addressing victim concerns. . The concerns will be based on the different proponents of RJ and the overall- satisfaction that arises for victims out

When considering studies in corrections on a global scale it is important to understand how to utilize the most applicable method to gather knowledge. Comparative studies are often used to explore methods for explicating or developing knowledge and attitudes. Comparative research examines cases with the intention to reveal the structure and invariance or unchanging relationship for an entire group or population. In this case, and for the purpose of this paper, the comparative research is suggested to be used in corrections on a global scale. Several problems arise when using comparative research studies on a global scale. Some of these issues are cross-cultural research between countries, selecting a compatible research design whether