Restorative Justice Applications and Challenges

This assignment delves into the concept of restorative justice, examining its implementation and impact across diverse settings such as schools, juvenile justice systems, and community conflicts. Students analyze provided research articles to assess the benefits and drawbacks of restorative justice approaches, considering factors like racial bias, legal capacity, and procedural fairness. The goal is to critically evaluate the effectiveness and challenges of restorative justice in achieving its aims of repairing harm and fostering accountability.

Running Head: Restorative justice: strengths and critiques
Restorative justice: strengths and critiques

2
Restorative justice: strengths and critiques
Abstract
The main aim of this essay is to provide depth understanding about strength and weakness of
Restorative Justice in the Australia. This essay evaluates the application of Restorative
Justice in the Australia. In this, justice philosophy shows that harm is initiated by the illegal
acts. Further, it identifies that Restorative justice is significant for Australian communities,
minor age criminals, and victims.
This justice provides the opportunities to victims and criminal to interact with each other. It
forces criminal to regret towards the harmful activity which is done by them. Together with,
it makes compromise between the criminal and victim. It is supportive to start their daily
lives with calmness. Additionally, it discusses certain issues which are faced by the
Restorative justice team to deliver justice.
This essay explains the reason behind the negative attitude of community, victims, and
criminals regarding the justice system. It also demonstrates some significant components that
may affect the Restorative justice system. These components includes expensive ensuing
pilot activities, cash inflows and outflows issues, rights of the safe guard, and suitability and
significance in cultural and ethnic groups.

3
Restorative justice: strengths and critiques
Introduction
Restorative justice is significant to create a mutual understanding between the criminal and
victims. This essay presents the concept related to Restorative Justice in context of Australia.
It also discusses the strength and critics of Restorative Justice in Australia.
Restorative justice: strengths and critiques
Restorative justice is the philosophy of justice, which demonstrates the injury begun by
illegal performance. It is a legislative and court allotted structure where the illegal justice
system concentrates on integrating criminals. It is performed by making a settlement between
criminal, victims and the community. Additionally, it can also be stated that the Restorative
justice direct to alteration in the behaviour of individuals and groups (Bruce, 2013). As per
the evaluation of Restorative justice system, it is addressed that criminal court is emphasized
on the victim rather than criminal consequently court is enabled to reduce the level of crime
due to less strict penalties.
It is argued that the uses of Restorative justice are beneficial within the Australian country for
criminal as well as community and victims. Restorative justice is significant for the
community due to decline recidivism, enhance security, cost efficiency, and robust group.
The Restorative justice is supportive to decline the recurrence crimes which are beneficial for
community and victims. Moreover, it is examined that when Australian communities forgive
to their offender for their illegal behaviour then the probability of occurring these activity
would be declined (Camilleri, et al., 2013).
Moreover, an individual who is criminal have the opportunity to perform appropriately by
describing the whole process of incidents wherein experts are able to lead the criminal to
make offense free life. At the same time, the low replication of illegal behaviour makes the
harmless community, which would be effective for communities to stay stress free lives. The

4
Restorative justice: strengths and critiques
implementation of Restorative justice is encouraging the person to create safety within their
areas consequently it makes more enjoyable places for living (Cashmore, 2013).
According to the Connolly (2013), the community justice should try to make efficient
citizenship to improve the safety level for community as well as develop wellbeing areas for
them. Therefore, volunteering is used to develop robust and organized communities together
with enhancing the social connections within the communities.
Restorative justice is effective to empower the victims by providing facility to make open
discussion with criminals. Additionally, criminal court provides the opportunity to victim for
freely discussion and interaction with an individual who have injured to them. Moreover,
victims participate in whole process due to getting the appropriate result of incident. Hence,
the needs of victims are approved and measured by the justice team which provides them a
vocal sound decision. As well as, they provide an effective structure for interacting with
criminals (Daly, 2016).
It is also addressed that the Restorative justice supports to victims for getting higher
satisfaction by providing them a sound decision. By using the Restorative justice, Australian
victims are able to justify their incident issue together with identifying the whole process
about their injury. At the same time, they would be enabled to know about why the criminal
will get compensation for their illegal activity. Additionally, Restorative justice satisfies to
large number of victims by solving their problem regarding material possessions and
calmness. Hence, victims would be enabled to easily move forward from their case and move
back on their daily survives (Braithwaite, 2014).
The criminal can get different benefits by using the restorative justice such as getting
opportunity to freely communicate about their illegal activity, and can get the resolution on
time with higher success rate. The Restorative justice helps to an individual who has a big

5
Restorative justice: strengths and critiques
role for harming other person in case they show regret for their illegal activities. As a result,
it would be beneficial for both criminals as well as sufferers.
In addition, criminal will enable to discuss about the whole incident with this justice system
and can appeal to get compensation. Consequently, it can be stated that the uses of restorative
justice is beneficial due to solving the criminal issues on the specified time. In oppose to this,
criminal is liable for deteriorating to community and they cannot get compensation in case
they did not show their regret behaviour (McElrea, 2013).
It is argued that the implementation of Restorative justice in Australia can create certain
issues such as complexity in decision making, integrating the aim, concept, procedure into the
existing illegal justice structure. Through restorative justice, sometimes offenders face
victimizing effects when interacting with victims. Hence, it can be illustrated that such
situation can create the complexity to take appropriate decision (Mills, et al., 2013).
It is also stated that when victims have faced interpersonal violence then they could take
decision-related to the settlement. Although, it could be possible in some cases but a large
number of victims demand to punish the criminal for their harmful activity. Thus, it creates
difficulty to implement the restorative justice within such kind of cases. Moreover, uses of
restorative justice can arise biasness due to offering safety to only victims regarding the
physically and psychologically risk (Nikolakis, et al., 2014).
The informality nature comes by bias justice structure, which can be reduced by stopping the
appropriate protections and defenses for the particular victim. Moreover, the on-going power
should be provided to both parties because it will decline the disparities between victims and
criminal. The law expert has confirmed that the restorative justice can be used to manipulate
the justice procedure and eliminate the crimes. Since, it provides the opportunity to criminal
to appeal and discussion on the front of victims for their harmful activity (Payne, et al.,
2015).

6
Restorative justice: strengths and critiques
The existing justice system is better than the Restorative justice system because this process
is relied on free agreement to follow the resolution process at the time of justice delivery.
In addition, the Restorative justice system may pressurize to victims for using this system in
case they gave the preference to the public interfere regarding their incidents. At the same
time, it is very difficult for the victims to easily forgive the criminal for their harmful acts.
Similarly, Restorative justice system may also face issues to motivate both criminal and
victim for settlement (Reimer, 2017).
In Australia, different sources of justice structure have been more successful because they did
not want to use the Restorative justice delivery system due to its limitation. The main issue of
the restorative justice system is that this structure is more concentrates on the fulfillment of
needs related to victims, offender, and societal group instead of penalizing the offender for
their crime. The difference between this justice system and other is that the Restorative
justice system treats offended as an activity dedicated in oppose to the societal community
(Shapland, 2014).
Moreover, several experimental acts have significantly been accepted and extended due to
complexities in the specified region. However, many pilot activities are not accepted across
the Australia due to getting the unfavourable outcome. Therefore, it can be said that there is
lack of Restorative system in the Australia due to its higher cost (Tsui, 2014).
It is argued that that several problems regarding the application of the Restorative justice
system has been faced by the communities. These are a lower level of referral taxes, lack of
ethnic session convenors, and a large volume of youth are deteriorating to perform for
meetings. Another problem is lack of consciousness between the ethnic communities, and the
Restorative justice regarding the potential advantages (Vaandering, 2014).
The communities can try to decline such issues by enhancing the ethnic significance of the
restorative justice activities, using a series of habits, involving the participation of specified

7
Restorative justice: strengths and critiques
community like associates and heads. Additional research is needed to greatly understand the
restorative justice for determining its effect on the cultural and minor age communities in
Australia (Ward, et al., 2014).
The cash flow issue is another significant factor which affects the application of Restorative
justice structure. Since, there is need of the huge amount of cash to organise the program
related to justice, which can create the problem for both victims as well as criminal.
Additionally, the specified cash is required for accomplishing the whole process of justice
delivery, which is difficult for victim to successfully arrange the whole amount. Therefore, it
can be said that the cash flow is a major issue for community, victims, and criminals because
it has negative impact on the Restorative justice delivery system (Weller, 2014).
Conclusion
As per the above discussion, it can be concluded that the application of Restorative justice
could be beneficial for both offender and victims. From the application of the Restorative
justice, criminal can again start their life to new phase. Because, the Restorative justice
system provides an opportunity to the criminal for explaining whole process of case and
interacting with victims for regretting their harmful activity. At the same time, it can also be
examined that such process can be significant to obtain the appropriate outcome.
Finally it can be summarized that the application of Restorative justice can be appropriate in
in solving the issue of both criminal and victims. But, it is also examined that the Restorative
justice system cannot be significant for the victims, offenders, and community due to
biasness and dissimilar behaviors towards the incident. In addition, it can be illustrated that
the restorative justice system identifies the criminal activity as a normal act, which makes it
different from the other justice system. Therefore, victims prefer to take another source of
justice for getting favourable decision. Moreover, it determines some significant factors such
as expensive ensuing pilot activities, and cash flows issues. Others are rights of the safe guard

8
Restorative justice: strengths and critiques
and suitability and significance in cultural and ethnic groups. These factors can directly affect
the restorative justice system at the time of making decision.

9
Restorative justice: strengths and critiques
References
Braithwaite, J. (2014). SPECIAL ISSUE: Evidence for Restorative Justice. The Vermont Bar
Journal, 40(2), pp. 18-22.
Bruce, J. (2013). Understanding Back Stage and Front Stage Work in Restorative Justice
Conferences: The Benefits of Using Ethnographic Techniques. Current Issues Crim.
Just., 25, P. 517.
Camilleri, P., Thomson, L., & McArthur, M. (2013). Needs or deeds? Child protection and
youth justice in the Australian Capital Territory. Journal of Social Welfare and
Family Law, 35(2), pp. 193-206.
Cashmore, J. (2013). Juvenile justice: Australian court responses situated in the international
context. In Australia's Children's Courts Today and Tomorrow, 4(3), pp. 197-207.
Connolly, M. (2013). Care and protection: Australia and the international context.
In Australia's Children's Courts Today and Tomorrow, 3(2), pp. 187-196.
Daly, K. (2016). What is restorative justice? Fresh answers to a vexed question. Victims &
offenders, 11(1), pp. 9-29.
McElrea, F. (2013). Restorative justice as a procedural revolution: some lessons from the
adversary system. Civilizing Criminal Justice: An International Restorative Agenda
for Penal Reform, 3(2), P.81.
Mills, L. G., Barocas, B., & Ariel, B. (2013). The next generation of court-mandated
domestic violence treatment: A comparison study of batterer intervention and
restorative justice programs. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 9(1), pp. 65-90.
Nikolakis, W., & Grafton, R. Q. (2014). Fairness and justice in indigenous water allocations:
insights from Northern Australia. Water Policy, 16(S2), pp. 19-35.
Payne, A. A., & Welch, K. (2015). Restorative justice in schools: The influence of race on
restorative discipline. Youth & Society, 47(4), pp. 539-564.

10
Restorative justice: strengths and critiques
Reimer, K. (2017). An exploration of the implementation of Restorative justice in an Ontario
public school. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 2(1), P.
119.
Shapland, J. (2014). Implications of growth: Challenges for restorative justice. International
Review of Victimology, 20(1), pp. 111-127.
Tsui, J. C. (2014). Breaking Free do the Prison Paradigm: Integrating Restorative Justice
Techniques into Chicago's Juvenile Justice System. J. Crim. L. & Criminology, 104,
P. 635.
Vaandering, D. (2014). Implementing restorative justice practice in schools: What pedagogy
reveals. Journal of Peace Education, 11(1), pp. 64-80.
Ward, T., Fox, K. J., & Garber, M. (2014). Restorative justice, offender rehabilitation and
desistance. Restorative Justice, 2(1), 24-42.
Weller, P. (2014). Reconsidering legal capacity: radical critiques, governmentality and
dividing practice. Griffith Law Review, 23(3), pp. 498-518.