Restorative Justice: Repairing Societal Harm and Promoting Accountability

Restorative Justice strives to restore and repair the societal harm that has been caused by crime and deviance while making the offenders liable for their guilt. Different criminal justice systems around the globe has started to use restorative approach for a better outcome for the accused, offenders and victims, thereby reducing the number of cases and trials and subsequently reducing the burden of the judicial system. Restorative Justice is a new perspective towards crime, deviance and the criminal justice system; giving them more holistic and humanizing approach.

Running head: RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
Restorative Justice
Name of the Student
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Restorative Justice strives to restore and repair the societal harm that has been caused
by crime and deviance while making the offenders liable for their guilt (Justice.gc.ca, 2019).
Different criminal justice systems around the globe has started to use restorative approach for
a better outcome for the accused, offenders and victims, thereby reducing the number of cases
and trials and subsequently reducing the burden of the judicial system (Justice.gc.ca, 2019).
Restorative Justice is a new perspective towards crime, deviance and the criminal justice
system; giving them more holistic and humanizing approach. It looks at crime not just as an
infringement of law of the society but also as a social issue impacting the society, people and
communities. Restorative Justice is a form of justice that repairs the ill-effect of crime and its
evil impact on the society by: a) making the offenders accountable for the criminal acts, b)
addressing the need of the aggrieved parties, providing them opportunities to be heard and
also providing them appropriate relief, and c) preventing future crime and deviance.
There are different methods of Restorative Justice, which can be seen in different form, like:
 Reconciliation or mediation between the victim and the offender where trained
mediators brings the victim and the offender together to discuss regarding the
occurrence of the crime, its effects and any relief that can be provided to the victim
through the offender. Indirect approaches are also used sometimes where the victim
and the offender are made to exchange of letters expressing their grief and respective
situation
 Conferencing, another way by which the principle of restorative justice is often
applied where the victim, offender, their respective supporters and community or
social workers strive to repair and provide relief.
 Victim-Offender panel, bringing victims and offenders who have committed similar
crimes for striking a discussion which might help both the parties to understand each

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other’s situation and often helps the offender to refrain from committing such crime
again.
 Panel of Victims where a group of victims carry out a conversation among
themselves for discussing the impact of the crime that have had an ill-effect on them
and the associated people.
 Circles, social in nature which bring people from same or different community
together to discuss offence, its cause and effect, on the victim and on the community
as a whole, thereby identifying a relevant path of relief forward.
Initiatives of Restorative justice vary from one case to another and from one community to
another as well, for different victim and community have different needs along with the fact
that every crime is different from one another.
Restorative justice can be applied in criminal cases where victims testify regarding
the impact of the crime on their respective lives, holding the offenders accountable for the
injury or loss that they have suffered from. The offenders are given the opportunity to share
their life situation and the reason behind committing the offence. They are also given the
chance to compensate or provide a relief to the victim to the best of their ability or possibility,
which may include general or specific community service, compensation in the form of
money, education for preventing recidivism, et cetera. Restorative justice involves an
interaction or encounter between the victim and offender, like the Mennonite Central
Committee Canada, where the program of restorative justice emphasizes on and values its
participants. Certain Restorative justice programs can be reserved for the victims or for the
offenders but shall bear a restorative framework for addressing the subjects. Indigenous
groups apply restorative justice programs and policies for creating community support for the
victims as well as the offenders, young people in particular, like at Kahnawake, a Mohawk
reserve in Canada.

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Restorative justice is also applicable in prison, for the offenders who are either under
trail or serving sentence. The reason behind the application of Restorative justice in prison is
for assisting the prisoner’s rehabilitation and subsequent reintegration into the community.
Restorative justice helps to reinstate the offenders back into the society by repairing the
relationship and outlook of the victims towards the offenders and vice versa. The equation of
the society with the offenders that has cropped up due to the crimes committed need to be
mended by the help of Restorative justice which strive to understand the circumstance and
condition of the offender in which he had committed the offence. Through Restorative
justice, recidivism is tried to be prevented once the offender has been released after he has
served his sentence. The chances of reducing recidivism by the help of Restorative justice is
one of the promising factor for its application in the prison, even though many critics have
stated several limitations, both theoretical and practical.
Restorative justice is often implemented in school by using certain models and
programs of the principle for making the teachers and students come together for devising
expectations for the students in order to build a healthy classroom environment. By the help
of restorative justice, teachers and the students can have a consensus towards each other’s
need and expectation.
There are several criticism that talks about the limitation of the concept of
Restorative justice. As criticized by Morris (2002), restorative justice erodes legal rights,
trivializes crime and fails to reinstate a normalcy between the victim and the offender,
thereby failing to make relevant changes and prevent recidivism. Morris has further argued
that restorative justice often gives rise to discriminatory outcome and extend police power
(Morris, 2002). It also empowers vigilantism, thereby effecting an imbalance of power. It has
been commented by Morris that restorative justice does not possess legitimacy, thereby

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failing to provide justice (Morris, 2002). Another critic of restorative justice, Albert W. Dzur
and Susan M. Olson (2004) holds the view that professionals are often ignored in terms of
resorting to restorative justice programs for dealing with their issues in the field; however, it
is said that the programs of restorative justice cannot be successful without the involvement
of professionals. According to this duo, the involvement of professionals can help to avoid
issues related to informal justice and aid in promoting community development along with
safeguarding individual rights, for the professionals are not just agents of the state but are
mediums that promote the community for the betterment (Olson & Dzur, 2004). There are
critics who feel that it is an incomplete model that fails to restore the fundamental as well as
structural inequalities that are more likely to transform and instigate people to be offenders
(Takagi & Shank, 2004). They put forwarded that there are questions regarding the fairness
of institutional system, thereby pointing fingers at the structure of society. However, there are
some researchers like Brian Robbins who have agreed to the fact there should be more
research on the applicability and validity of restorative justice in school (Robbins, 2014). As
argued by Jones (2013), restorative justice that lack consistency and are run out of funding
often tend to carry a worse reputation.
Limitations like monetary restitution agreement as a form of restorative justice is a
great drawback and limitation which defeats the principle of restorative justice as a whole.
Several jurisdiction limit the amount of compensation that a juvenile offender can be made to
pay by way of restorative justice. Most importantly, labor regulations put a limitation on the
different community services that the juveniles could be made to perform, along with the fact
that the personal or community services are often made to be approved by the parents of the
juvenile offenders. In addition, it is often highlighted that the victim and the offenders may be
hesitant to engage in a conversation and eventually a settlement. It is often perceived by the
offenders that the sentence that they are serving is the responsibility that they are taking for

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their actions and in this process they do not engage in any form of restorative justice
program. Similarly, for many victims, the sentences served by the offenders often prove to be
sufficient, thereby removing all possibilities of the application of restorative justice.
However, amidst all the limitations and criticisms of restorative justice,
implementation of restorative justice is highly supported. There are various rights that the
victims currently enjoy under restorative justice programs. Under the Canadian Victims Bill
of Rights (CVBR), victims has the right to acquire information regarding the services and
programs that they deserve as per the restorative justice programs. However, this service is
only available on request and thus unless a victim is aware of the restorative justice programs,
he would be deprived for his rights. There are legislations like the Corrections and
Conditional Release Act (CCRA) which furnishes information to the victims who enquires
about restorative justice and it directs the victims to get registered for victim-offender
mediation programs that are available to them. In addition, restorative justice also finds its
mention in the provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada where section 717 of the Code
allows ‘alternative measures’ for the victims and the offenders for receiving redressal and
lesser sentences respectively. Section 718 of the Code lays down the principle of restorative
justice which states that the Code should provide reparation for the injury effected upon the
victim as well as upon the society as a whole. The provision also directs the Code to promote
responsibility among the offenders and make them acknowledge the injury that they have
done to the victims as well as to the community as a whole. The Youth Criminal Justice Act
(the YCJA) also mentions the application of restorative justice for the country’s youth justice
system, applicable to minors above 12 but below 18 years of age who have been alleged to
have committed certain criminal offence. The Youth Criminal Justice Act aids and promotes
the reparation of injury done to victims and the society as a whole. It invites the involvement

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and engagement of victims as well as offenders to opt for restorative, reintegration and
rehabilitation programs.
There has been researches across Canada where it has been found that restorative
justice would prove to be an effective service for the youth in conflict, minor offences related
to property, first time offenders or offences that affect the whole community. In such cases, it
is often said that it would be easier to influence the victim and the offender to participate in
mediation or restorative services. Analysed by the Department of Justice Canada, restorative
justice was found to be more effective and welcomed than the traditional form of justice in
terms of improving the satisfaction of the victims as well as the offenders. The often
discussed potential benefits of restorative justice is cited on behalf of the victims who get the
opportunity for communicating with the offender who brought harm to them, thereby letting
them know personally the impact and ill-effect of the harm that they have suffered along with
the severity of the punishment that the offenders are experiencing at the moment; the victims
get the chance to throw questions at them the ones they have in their mind regarding the harm
or loss that they sustained from the particular offences. It works as a closure for the victims as
well as for the offenders. The perspective that restorative justice strives to lay down
improvement and betterment over the traditional criminal justice system although has several
controversy; however it cannot be overlooked that restorative justice has paved the way for
the awareness of the rights that the victims have even after the offenders have been put to
sentence. Unlike the adversarial and traditional criminal justice system, it pays attention in
the rehabilitation of the offenders of criminal acts and tries to reconcile such offenders with
the victims, thereby focusing on the reparation of the injury or an attempt for potential
healing for the victim.

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References
Canadian Victims Bill of Rights
Corrections and Conditional Release Act
Criminal Code of Canada
Jones, H. T. (2013). Restorative justice in school communities: Successes, obstacles, and
areas for improvement. Unpublished master’s thesis). Austin, TX: University of Texas
at Austin. www. utexas. edu/research/cswr/rji/rdinschools. html.
Justice.gc.ca. (2019). Restorative justice. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/news-
nouv/photo/video10.html
Morris, A. (2002). Critiquing the critics: A brief response to critics of restorative
justice. British Journal of Criminology, 42(3), 596-615.
Olson, S. M., & Dzur, A. W. (2004). Revisiting informal justice: Restorative justice and
democratic professionalism. Law & Society Review, 38(1), 139-176.
Robbins, B. (2014). A Study of the Implementation of Restorative Justice at a Public High
School in Southern California.
Takagi, P., & Shank, G. (2004). Critique of restorative justice. Social Justice, 31(3), 147.
Youth Criminal Justice Act