| What is restorative justice? | A system that focuses on the rehabilitation of the offender through reconciliation with victims (survivors). This can be seen in school, workplaces, AA, hospitals |
| What are the 4 features? | -Trained mediator
-Offender volutnary meets survivor in relaxed setting, acvitve involvement and focusing on postivie outcomes for both parties
-Survivor is given the chance to confront the offender and explain how it affected them
-Wider community can be involved to explain the effects of the crime, neighbours, family etc. |
| What is the aim of restorative justice? | Move away from the traditional empahsis on punishment, the victim of the crime can recover and the offender is helped on their rehabilitation process |
| 4 aims for the victims? | -Enable them to put the crime behind them
-Empowerment
-Develop understanding about why the crime was committed
-Gives them a voice in teh criminal justice system |
| 4 aims for the community? | -Saves money
-Reduces the frequency of reoffending
-Shows everyone that offedenders are mkaing up for their actions
-Opportunity to rebuild (or build) a sense of togetherness and mutual accountability |
| 4 aims of the offender? | -Opportunity to address and heal the underlying issues and change
-Develop an understanding of the effect of their actions
-Opportunity to apologise and accept responisbility
-Opportunity to repair the harm they have done |
| When does resotrative justice happen? | Can be seen pre-trial, it could be alongside priosn or as an alternative (but only with smaller crimes)
This can be seen as a incentive to reduce the length of the sentence. |
| What is the finanical side of this? | Traditional sesne: monetary payment by the offender to the survivor for the hamr resulting from the offednce.
Finanical restitution to the survivor whcih may reflect the dmage done |
| Emotional side of this? | Offender can support the healing process by repairing the survivors confidence or self-esteem
Paying back in an emotional sense |
| A strength of restorative justice? | -Evidence for the positive outcomes
-Restorative justice programme council conducted a 7 year sutdy and found that 85% of survivor reported satisfaction from meeting the offender
-60% of survirors said that the process allowed them to feel better and give them closure
-Therefore, suggests that restorative justice acheives some of its aims, helping survivors of crime to cope in the aftermath of the incidence |
| A strength of restorative justice? | -Effective in reducing recidivism rates
-Meta-analysis of 10 studies by Heather Strang compared offedners who explired restorative justice schemes comapred to those who jsut experienced custodial sentencing. Restorative justice group was significantly less likely to reoffend. Reduction was larger in offenders convicted of violent crime rather than crimes against property.
-A review of 24 published studied by Bain found lowered recidivism rates with adult offenders, especially when using one to one contact rather than general community involvement
-But a meta-analysis study could have been selective with the studied and only schosen ones that support the research's view of restorative justice lowering recidivsm, an exmaple of selective bias |
| A weakness of restorative justice? | -Not all research was positive
-Wood and Suzuki argue restorative processes are non survivor-focused as often reported and that the aims of the programmes can be distorted
-Researchers say that survivors of crime are 'used' as a way of helping rehabilitate offenders, rather than helping themselves
-Suggests that the needs of the survivor in restorative justice may be seen as secondary to the need to rehabilitate offenders |
| A weakness of restorative justice programme? | -System can be abused by offenders for thier own gain
-Restorative justice programmes can be seen to depend on honourable intentions of the offender to try and address their crimes and develop an understanding for their actions which will allow for them to heal as well as the survivor in the situation
-However, offenders may abused this sytem by only acting in this way in order to get a reduced sentence or to make themselves feel better, not engaging to help themselves or the survivor in the situation
-Would epxlain why not all offenders ultimatley benefit from restorative justice and go on to reoffend |
