Restorative Justice: Effectiveness and Impact

This assignment delves into the concept of restorative justice, examining its principles, processes, and impact on offenders, victims, and communities. It analyzes the effectiveness of restorative justice interventions in reducing recidivism and promoting healing. The discussion highlights the benefits of victim participation, offender accountability, and community involvement in restorative justice programs.

Running head: CRIME AND JUSTICE
Crime and Justice
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Essay Plan
Topic: Evaluate the claim that restorative justice practices are beneficial for victims of crime and
offenders
The concept of restorative justice is considered as an innovative approach to criminal
justice. It is an alternative to the traditional criminal process followed in courts as restorative
justice generally include meeting of the offenders and the victims and their respective families.
The participants come to an agreement for the accused with a view to repair the damage he
caused to the victim. In the event a party declines to attend such face-to-face meetings, there are
scopes to bring out the restorative outcome of repairing the harm caused to the victim by the
offender. In other words, restorative justice emphasizes on refurbishing the harm caused by the
offender to the victim. It can be achieved through cooperative processes that include all the
actors in the criminal justice system.
Restorative justice is beneficial for all the fundamental actors within the criminal justice
system. Firstly, it provides the offender with an opportunity to accept his/her responsibility for
the harm he/she caused to the victim, thus, rehabilitating. Secondly, it is advantageous for the
state as well by diverting cases away from the criminal justice system that is already over-
burdened with cases. Lastly, it gives a chance to the victims to play a significant role in dealing
with the crime that has been against him/her by the accused/offender. It is always beneficial for
the victims, offenders and the affected members of the society to be involved in responding to
the crime, as they are vital to the criminal justice process. This restorative process of including
all the parties to the criminal justice system through face-to-face meetings is an influential way

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to address not only the physical injuries but also the psychological, relational and social injuries
as well.
The essential concepts included in the restorative justice are to understand the needs of
the offenders and victims and to ensure that justice is administered to all the actors in the
criminal justice system. Restorative justice is a an alternative approach to the traditional court’s
process. This approach aims at repairing the damage caused by the accused or the offender which
lacks in the traditional criminal justice system. The essay shall discuss how restorative justice, in
all its sense, is a commendable effort to humanize the justice system.
The essay shall include an introduction, body and conclusion where the introduction part
shall entail brief concept of the topic restorative justice and its essential elements. In the body of
the essay, the essential elements shall be discussed elaborately. Further, it shall include the
impact of restorative justice and shall provide examples to establish the claim that it is beneficial
for both offenders and victims. The conclusion shall include summary of the points discussed in
the entire essay to establish that restorative justice is a beneficial to the victims, offenders and the
affected members of the community.
ESSAY
The notion of restorative justice is a new movement in the world of criminology and
victimology. Given the fact that crimes causes injuries to communities and people, restorative
justice repair such injuries and allows the parties to such crime to take part in that process. The
restorative justice programs permit the offenders, victims and the other affected members to play
a significant role in responding to the crimes (Bouffard et al. 2017). These actors become vital to
the criminal justice process with the support from the legal professionals and the government.

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They act as facilitators to such system that aims at ensuring the accountability of the offender,
reparation of the victims and complete participation of the affected members of the community.
This process involves face-to-face meeting that are held between the offenders, victims and the
affected community members where the offender admits his/her offence and takes full
responsibility for the injuries caused to victims and the affected community members. The essay
will further discuss about the essential elements involved in the restorative justice process that it,
the victims, offenders and the affected community members. It shall further critically analyze the
intended benefits of restorative justice for victims. In conclusion, a brief summary shall be
provided establishing that restorative justice is a viable alternative under certain circumstances to
the traditional criminal justice system.
The emergence of the notion of restorative justice had taken place due to two broad and
essential trends (Larsen 2014). The first trend is the overall inclination towards an alternative
dispute resolution method, which shall be cheaper, more hospitable than an expensive, tome-
consuming and psychologically strenuous difficult system that is based on formal adjudication
and litigation. The second trends includes the persisting dissatisfaction with the traditional
criminal justice system that is not only burdensome and costly but also fails to deter crime,
rehabilitate offenders, and promote effective and just punishment to administer justice to the
affected victims.
Restorative justice satisfies both the aspects of politics- conservatives and the liberal
aspect. From the conservative aspect, it focuses on the accountability of the offenders, saving
governmental expenses and empowerment of the victims. From the liberal aspect, it focuses on
the welfare of all the parties and the likelihood for creating and healing the peace. This
establishes the reason why several victimologists, criminologists have accepted restorative

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justice on the ground that it involves benefits for victims, offenders and the State in one single
process.
Restorative justice is a form of justice theory that emphasizes on repairing the harm that
is caused to the victim by the criminal behavior. The repairing is achieved through cooperative
processes, which includes all the stakeholders or the actors of the criminal justice system that is,
the offenders, victims and the affected community members (Crawford and Newburn 2013). As
discussed earlier, restorative justice process involves face-to-face-meetings between the victims,
offender and the affected members of the community. The meetings between the victims,
offenders and the members of the affected community are vital to address the relational aspect of
crime and justice. Three acceptable methods characterize restorative justice- victim offender
mediation, peacemaking or sentencing circles and Family or Community group conferencing.
Victim offender mediation is a process that allows an interested victim to meet the
offender in a structured and secured setting, engaging in a discussion about the crime committed
and such discussion shall be held through the assistance of a trained mediator. The objective of
this process is to permit the victims to meet the offenders voluntarily and inform them about the
impact of crime on the victim for the offender to take the responsibility for such harm (Hipple et
al. 2016). The offender and victims are provided with an opportunity to develop a plan for
addressing the harm.
Family or Community Group Conferencing is a process where the offender, victim,
friends and family are brought together to address the consequences of crime. The objective of
such conferencing process includes providing the victim with an opportunity to respond to the
crime and permitting the support system of the offenders to amend and re-shape future behavior,

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attempting to permit the victims and the offender to associate with the community support.
Peacemaking or Sentencing Circles is a process that is designed to develop agreement among
the community members, victims, offenders, judges, defense counsel, police and court workers
with respect to appropriate sentencing plan that purports to address the concerns of all the
interested parties. The main objective of this process is to address all the injuries of all the
affected parties and provide the offender to make amendments and enable the victim and the
affected community members with the opportunity to voice their concern in resolving the causes
of criminal behavior exhibited by the offender.
The three restorative justice processes ultimately determine the procedure to repair the
harm caused by the crimes committed by the offender against the victim. In order to execute the
restorative justice process to respond to crimes, two traditional criminal justice sanctions
community service and restitution (Clamp 2016). Restitution is the payment of a sum of money
that is paid by an offender to compensate the victim for the financial losses caused by the crime.
It is a justified restorative method of holding offenders responsible for the crimes committed by
them and a method for repairing the injury caused to the victim. It either may be determined in
the course of circles and conferencing or may be ordered by a judge. Community service is work
that is carried out for the benefit of the community by the offenders. It is a justifiable restorative
justice process used to address the harm caused to the victim and its impact on the community.
This process can be used as a means to rehabilitate the offender.
In regards to the development of restorative justice, there have been growing concerns
about the fact whether the concept has been effective at deterring crimes. Restorative justice
being a tertiary form of crime deterrence measure aims at deterring the act of offending instead
of prohibiting primary prevention. Hence, if a restorative justice measure is effective, it should

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produce lower rates of recidivism. In a recent Australian study conducted by the NSW Bureau of
Crime Statistics and Research has been demonstrating that a large scale youth justice
conferencing initiative is capable of reducing 15-20% re-offending in several offences.
According to Braithwaite (2016), from the perspective of the victim, restorative justice is
essential as it allows the victim to participate in the criminal justice process giving them an
opportunity to overcome their fear and voice their opinion in redressing the harms caused by the
offender. The participation of the victim in giving their input enables the offender to understand
the impact of the crime committed by them and the harm resulted from such harm. This fact is
evident from the applicability of the restorative justice options throughout Australia by the end of
2013. Such options include conferencing for young offenders in all Australian territories and
state, conferencing adult offenders available in South Australia and NSW, victim-offender
mediation available in Australian jurisdictions. This review establishes that a body of research
establishes that restorative justice may be more effective for offenders that are more creative and
more serious offenders. This process is more-effective than pre-sentence. According to Zehr
(2015), the review has discovered other advantages that results from the Restorative Justice
Programs such as offender accountability, victim satisfaction and enhanced compliance with
variety of orders.
From the perspective of the offender, restorative justice process not only reduces
reoffending, as there is an involvement of informal social controls through the inclusion of
supporters, family and community representatives. This is because informal social control is
believed to influence offending. The process of conferencing stigmatizes the offenders but unlike
the traditional court processes, which aim at reinforcing the criminal behavior, it aims at
stigmatizing the criminal conduct and not the individual. Several studies have revealed that both

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the victims and offender agrees that the restorative justice procedures are fairer and more
beneficial than the court proceedings.
In the opinion of Johnstone (2013), although the restorative justice process promotes
strengthen and healing the social bonds which builds the foundation of our communities.
However, most victims do not take part in any formal process for resolving the issues related to
victimization. Similar to the traditional criminal justice system, several victims may not report
the crime to the police or the police may not find the offender. The extent to which the
restorative justice process depends, the victims may suffer from similar restrictions and several
victims may not avail the benefits of the restorative justice process.
Unlike the traditional criminal justice system, Strang (2017) states that the restorative
justice process often fail to address several needs of victims. Individual offenders often fail to
meet the needs of the victims or small communities as they can only take responsibility for the
crimes committed by them and the harm caused to the victim. The injuries sustained by the
offender can change the life of the victim forever and reparation seems to be less useful with
respect to the continuing relationship with the community or an offender. Cartwright (2016)
states that so long the needs of the victims are addressed with the resources of the communities
and the offenders, the needs of the victims shall remain to be unsatisfying.
On the other hand, the concept of restorative justice includes empathy, restitution,
accountability and mutual understanding as the essential principles of restorative justice. This
process restores the individual dignity. The benefits that arise from the restorative justice process
include greater probability of obtaining compensation, which would take the form of financial
redress for the victim apart from the participation of the victims in the criminal justice process.

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The process involves private sessions that are confidential in nature, which enables both the
offender and the victim, in particular, to participate in the criminal justice system. The system is
considered as cost effective and is vital for community benefits. There is a greater satisfaction for
and enhanced confidence with the criminal justice system.
From the above discussion, it can be inferred that substituting the traditional concept of
criminal justice with the concept of restorative justice will signify the commencement of a new
era for the victims affected from the crimes committed by the offender. Although there is no
precise answer provided for the question relating to the recent trend towards restorative justice is
negative or affirmative from the perspective of both the offender and the victims, the truth of
which, probably lies somewhere in the middle. Nevertheless, the procedure of the restorative
justice clearly establishes the fact it aims at ensuring that the offender takes responsibility of
his/her act and repair the harm caused to the victim and the other affected members of the
community. The opportunity of the victims to participate in the process satisfies their minds, as
they not only get to overcome their fear of social stigmatization, owing to the confidential
sessions, but they also get to inform the offenders of the impact of such crime.
The offenders, especially the young offenders, get opportunities to acknowledge
accountability of the crime and apologies, remorse and empathize with the victim. Under the
traditional court system, the offenders merely get a chance to actually take full responsibility of
the crime and empathize with the victims. Crime is not a depersonalized concept instead, it is
perceived as an experience between the individuals amidst the community. All the three essential
actors of the criminal justice process, offender, victim and community must recognize how the
commission of crime has affected each of them. Hence, it is their responsibilities to make
necessary attempts to recreate right relationships and rebuild social ties.

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Reference List
Bouffard, J., Cooper, M. and Bergseth, K., 2017. The effectiveness of various restorative justice
interventions on recidivism outcomes among juvenile offenders. Youth Violence and Juvenile
Jus
Braithwaite, J.B., 2016. Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation: The Question of
Evidence.
Cartwright, J., 2016. Navigating the Accountability and Wellbeing Nexus: Practitioners'
Experiences of Restorative Justice Processes with Youth Violent Offenders (Doctoral
dissertation, University of Auckland).
Clamp, K. ed., 2016. Restorative justice in transitional settings. Routledge.
Crawford, A. and Newburn, T., 2013. Youth offending and restorative justice. Routledge.
Hipple, N.K., Duwe, G. and Northcutt Bohmert, M., 2016. Evaluating Restorative Justice Circles
of Support and Accountability (COSA): Can Social Support Overcome Structural Barriers?.
Johnstone, G., 2013. Restorative justice: Ideas, values, debates. Routledge.
Larsen, J.J., 2014. Restorative justice in the Australian criminal justice system. Canberra,
Australia: Australian Institute of Criminology.

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Sherman, L.W., Strang, H., Mayo-Wilson, E., Woods, D.J. and Ariel, B., 2015. Are restorative
justice conferences effective in reducing repeat offending? Findings from a Campbell systematic
review. Journal of quantitative criminology, 31(1), pp.1-24.
Strang, H. and Braithwaite, J. eds., 2017. Restorative justice: Philosophy to practice. Routledge.
Strang, H., 2017. Restorative Justice Conferencing (RJC) Using Face-to-Face Meetings of
Offenders and Victims: Effects on Offender Recidivism and Victim Satisfaction: A Systematic
Review. Campbell Systematic Reviews 2013: 12.
Van Ness, D.W. and Strong, K.H., 2014. Restoring justice: An introduction to restorative justice.
Routledge.
Ward, T., Fox, K.J. and Garber, M., 2014. Restorative justice, offender rehabilitation and
desistance. Restorative Justice, 2(1), pp.24-42.
Zehr, H., 2015. Changing lenses: restorative justice for our times. Harrisonburg: Herald Press.