The Restorative Justice Process

Restorative Justice, according to Google, is a system of criminal justice that focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large. It does not have a place in our society for several reasons. It is ineffective because it doesn’t punish people, doesn’t change them, and makes the situation even worse in most cases.

Restorative justice also known as transformation justice focusses on the needs of the victims, offenders and the community. Transformation or Restorative Justice twists that idea and focus on repairing the harm the crime caused, while also making sure that those who are responsible for the crime take responsibility and accountability for their actions. My paper will explain how Restorative Justice can be used as a rehabilitation process in today’s society. If you were to ask someone to explain what justice was to them, most people would say something like “getting revenge on the offender for what they have done to us and or the community in which we live in”. People commonly mistake justice for punishment-often severe punishment. The difference between justice and punishment is that justice will force the person at fault to take accountability for their actions and punishment is just a way for the victims to make themselves feel better about the situation. Howard Zehr, was an American criminologist said “that helpful equity contrasts from the customary criminal equity framework as a result of the terms and controlling inquiries that it inquires:”. (Wikepdia, 2016) Therapeutic Justice asks the accompanying inquiries:

Restorative justice is a way to view crime in a positive way, viewing it as a way to help those who offend and those who are affected. By punishing an offender immediately no matter the crime committed they are stigmatized instantly by society, their peers, family and possibly even themselves. The negative stigmatization slowly but surely removes them from society as they are seen as people who do not belong and people who break the rules. Restorative justice helps because they are not stigmatized and punished immediately and by not doing so, and instead helping and guiding them, on what will happen, how to re enter society and having the people who were affected by their actions express their experience and feelings the offender will see the error of his or her ways.

Restorative justice focuses on "...repairing harm caused by criminal behavior." According to "restorativejustive.org.". Typically criminals are taken over by the state at the point of conviction and all type of interaction with the corrections process is between

Annamarie now lives with her grandmother. She had put off being the “strong one” for a while. Her bedroom window has a clear view of the theatre where the murder happened twelve years ago. Every morning she wakes up and sees it. Praying that she could be with Lucille. Just thinking of the terrible memory of that night. The anniversary is today. Her grandmother Mary, and Annamarie had gone to the graveyard where Lucille was buried. They were both followed there by a man that had a big black hat on and a brown coat. He was watching them like a hawk. Mostly on Annamarie. After saying a few words, they had left. Grandma Mary had dropped her off at the apartment and had gone to the public garden to a centerpiece for the dinner table. As Annamarie was walking in, all the lights were off, the windows were open, and a man standing in the kitchen. Annamarie had tried to get out, but the door was locked. The man started to chase after her. And Anna running towards the kitchen trying to get a knife. Anna had ran to the fire escape and the man followed. At that moment, she had realized who this man was. He was the one who had killed her mother.Just by the feeling that she had the same night of her mother’s death She had ran down the fire escape, and went straight to the public garden where Grandma Mary was. The man was no longer there. Anna with her grandmother crying knowing that this man who had once taken away her mom, and now trying to kill her. By

The main priorities of restorative justice is the victims and the restoration of the community to which the crime occurred. During earlier times restoration justice was used as a procedure to deal with property crimes (Britto, S., & Reimund, M. E., 2013). It has been said that the reason restoration justice was used for these types of crimes were because it was easier for the offender to right their wrong through restitution. Restorative Justice has grew increasingly throughout the criminal justice system over the years. Now, the program is used to ignite affords of victim offender mediation and dialog aiming to empower victims (Britto, S., & Reimund, M. E., 2013). Many feel that having an open dialog about murder or crimes in general increases the chances of restoring the community and righting the victim wrong.

Hey Ralph, get job on the discussion! You did a great job explaining what restorative justice is and who it affects. I agree that restorative justice should be within the school system since, like you said, can teach students a better and more profound lesson and not just suspending them because they have to. You also bring up a good point about restorative justice used with other sanctions, if they do not feel satisfied after using restorative justice maybe they should use other sanctions so the victim can be satisfied with the result. I too agree that restorative justice can do a lot of good to all of the people involved with the situation at hand. With prison bound offenders, I believe it's the crime the offender committed, but also if

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

Martin Wright explains that restorative justice involves a fundamental change in the response a society has towards individuals who harm one another. Wright elaborates that this terminology shifts the meaning of crime, stressing the fact that people are harmed, rather than a crime was broken (Wright 216). This highlights the ultimate source of restorative justice, and its strong relationship with

The way that restorative justice would help the victim’s and the offender’s in this case would be through the how process; a face-face meeting with the victim’s and offender’s in which they express to one another how the offense affected him or her and a plan for restitution should be implemented

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.

Restorative justice not only punishes the offender but finds ways to restore trust in the community and repair any harm that was done to the victims of the crime. Many people in society think only about punishing the offender but forgetting that the victim of the crimes need help also, whether through restitution from property crimes and help through personal harm done to the victim. Restorative justice takes all of this into

After the trial was over for the little boy. The family discovered that the baby was being hit by the boyfriend on a daily basis. The little boy did not know how to communicate to his Aunt that he was being hurt by the boyfriend. Young Lady had role confusion, she was to protect this little boy but did not know how due to she did not know the abuse was happening to him. She continues to have this with her into the next stage in her life.

Before all else, I would like to begin by noting that we are not aware of the detailed circumstances regarding the actual crimes. However, for this discussion we should assume that both crimes are identical in nature.

Procedural justice under the theory of restorative justice will consist of a family group conference including Torres, John Geer’s father, mother, daughters, and Maura Harrington. The purpose of the conference is not to mediate or moderate a discussion between the two sides (Zehr, 2002). Rather, the purpose of a restorative conference between Torres and Geer family is to create an opportunity for the Geer family to directly tell the Torres how John Geer’s death personally affected them (Newmark, 2017c). Alternatively, Torres has the to agree to repair the damage he caused to the Geer family and rehabilitate himself. Therefore, it is imperative that Torres first admits guilt and takes responsibility for the shooting death of John Geer before