Compare types of restorative justice and victim compensation.
The outcomes of engaging the formal CJS include opportunities to partake in both restorative justice as well as compensation programs. Both of these were mentioned briefly in prior modules. This section will expand on what they are, how they are implemented, and their effectiveness.
Restorative Justice
Restorative justice is when the victims and the offenders are able to mediate a restitution to the satisfaction of everyone. This can include the community they live in, as well as others who might be impacted by the crime. The idea behind restorative justice is to bring balance back to individuals and the community. Victims are able to express their experience to the offenders, and offenders are able to take responsibility for their actions in addition to redeeming themselves in the eyes of the community (Maruna, 2016). Restorative justice creates a process for those directly involved to come up with solutions through dialogue and mediation (Butler & Maruna, 2016). This is vastly different than other notions of justice, which focus on what laws have been broken and what the offender deserves for punishment. The restorative justice movement has been integrated with social justice movements, both working to empower victims, offenders, and communities.
According to Zehr (2005, p. 27), restorative justice asks the following questions:
1. Who has been hurt? 2. What are their needs? 3. Whose obligations are these? 4. What are the causes? 5. Who has a stake in the situation? 6. What is the appropriate process to involve stakeholders in an effort to address causes and put things right?
Many of the principles that are used in the current implementation of restorative justice come from aboriginal peoples, including those of the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. The idea is not just that offenders get what they deserve for their crimes, but also that now that they have served their time, they are welcomed back into the community, and are able to be full members of it. This approach is radically different than the current U.S. system. It gets to the root of the problem, whether that is directly between the victim and the offender or at broader social issues, and works to solve the core problem before it becomes a crime (Mirsky, 2004).
Group discussion settings provide an opportunity for victims, offenders, mediators, and others impacted by the crime to come together to find resolutions for the underlying problems that led to the crime as well as express any feels about the incident. It allows the offenders the opportunity to take responsibility for their actions and get help to prevent future crime. Image: Group discussion space. Authored by: Unknown. Source: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/641914. License: CC-0
Programs that implement restorative justice principles are found in almost every victim assistance program in the United States. Programs that are associated with restorative justice include the following:
• Victim/offender mediation or dialogue: offenders and victims talk about their experiences.
• Peacemaking circles: combine victim reconciliation, offender responsibility, and community healing to talk through what happened and what can be done to fix it.
• Former prisoner assistance and involvement: helps former prisoners to properly reintegrate back into society as full citizens.
• Community service: giving back to the community through volunteer work.
Although these types of programs have been shown to be effective “add-ons” to the CJS (Hoyle, 2012), they have certainly not become mainstream programs within the CJS. They have been applied primarily to lower level crimes and within the juvenile system, more than with violent crimes (Butler & Maruna, 2016), although some success has been seen at using restorative justice with more serious crime (Van Camp, 2014).
Most of the programs are optional programs, in which the victim or the offender have to choose to be part of the program, rather than the program being a normal part of the process.
In restorative justice the focus is on the victim-offender relationship and anyone else who was harmed by the crime. This was historically how criminal law operated, with the victim being the primary driver of the resolution for the victimization. The underlying philosophy is that crime, and other social ills, are the result of broken relationships within society; therefore, the only way to fix society is to restore those relationships (Umbreit, 2010). Some have argued that restorative justice is either a set of practices for collaborative problem solving or a way to solve crime. Unfortunately, as of yet, these two ideas have not been integrated together, and certainly the current state of restorative justice is not reflecting its ability to stop crime, which is called desistance (Maruna, 2016).
Butler and Maruna (2016) point out that in order for restorative justice to have real meaning, it needs to be a much more integral part of the process. Butler and Maruna recommend integrating restorative justice into the disciplinary process within prisons. Right now, restorative justice and disciplinary hearings are not seen as legitimate processes. This would allow prisoners, both the offender and victims, to have their voices heard and a resolution come into play that works for everyone.
Both critics and advocates of restorative justice note that while it can be used as one strategy, the lofty goals of it solving issues of crime is limited. Even countries with large restorative justice programs (such as the United States, New Zealand, and Canada) are having little overall impact on rescuing incarceration (Wood 2015). As Braithwaite noted in 1998, it should be used as one tool in the largest
corrections. In order for it to be effective at all, there also needs to be strong social support systems, such as the social safety net, that would decrease the need for crime.