How can the concept of restorative justice be understood, and what are the underlying values and principles at the heart of this approach? Restorative justice refers to a way of responding to crime, or to other types of wrongdoing, injustice or conflict, that focuses primarily on repairing the damage caused by the wrongful action and restoring, insofar as possible, the well-being of all those involved.
It reflects a more relational theory of justice because it emphasizes the restoration of respect, equality, and dignity to the relationships affected by wrongdoing. Restorative justice is called 'restorative' because it employs restorative processes, that is, processes that restore agency, ownership and decision-making power to those directly affected by the harmful event - victims, offenders, their supporters and the wider community.
Rather than deferring all responsibility to the state or to legal professionals, it aims to engage the immediate participants in resolving the harm. Restorative justice is also called restorative because it is guided by restorative values, those that favour collaborative and consensus-based procedures over the adjudicative and adversarial forms that often characterize conventional criminal justice procedures Robins, When people who have caused injury are invited to truthfully acknowledge their wrongdoing, listen respectfully to those they have hurt, and honour their duty to put things right again, significant steps are taken to restoring dignity and meeting the needs of all parties.
Furthermore, restorative justice is also grounded in feminist relational theory, based on the relational nature of human beings and "an understanding of the self as constituted in and through relationships with others" Llewellyn, It views wrongdoing in relational terms, as "harm caused to individuals in relationship with others and in the connections between and among them".
The definition of restorative justice cited in the Key Terms of this Module, includes a range of key values, such as 'voluntary' participation, 'truthful' speaking, the creation of a 'safe and respectful' environment, a positive commitment to 'repair' and a concern to 'clarify accountability for harms'.
This is not an exhaustive list of core values, but it highlights how crucial relational values are to a restorative process. Respect is of particular importance Zehr and Gobar, Criminal offending, and other kinds of injustice, are experienced fundamentally as an act of disrespect , a failure to value one's inherent dignity, identity, rights and feelings.
This disrespect can only be remedied by respect, by a clear acknowledgement on the part of the offender that the victim did not deserve to be treated as they were, and that their rights, feelings and interests matter every bit as much as those of the perpetrator.
When the criminal justice system holds someone accountable, this means ensuring they get the punishment they deserve, irrespective of whether they accept personal responsibility for what happened. In restorative justice, accountability has a much more demanding character.
It requires three things of offenders: an acceptance of personal blame for inflicting harm; a willingness to witness first-hand the consequences of their actions on the lives of those they hurt; and an assumption of active responsibility for doing all they can to put things right again Zehr and Gobar, The dialogical and restitutive character of restorative justice is not unique.
Similar values and processes are reflected in several indigenous cultures. An early pioneer of restorative justice, Howard Zehr, argued that prior to the emergence of the nation state, wrongdoing was primarily viewed in an interpersonal rather than a legal context.
This era of community justice was far less systematic and generally had a restitutive character. The personal, customary and negotiated features of community justice were eventually replaced by a more institutionalized and centralized system of legal justice.
Rather than communities, the state had responsibility to enforce a system of laws and punishments Zehr, By contrast, most indigenous traditions viewed wrongdoing in profoundly communal rather than legal terms.
This created a collective responsibility to respond to the harm caused by wrongdoing, involving a much wider web of relationships surrounding both offender and victim.
These traditions have influenced the modern development of restorative justice, as highlighted in the preamble to the Basic Principles : restorative justice "often draws upon traditional and Indigenous forms of justice, which view crime as fundamentally harmful to people.
The modern concept of restorative justice developed in the s in North America, when the first restorative justice programmes emerged. In , two probation workers in Kitchener, Canada, brought victims and offenders of a vandalism case together to deal directly with the wrongdoing and discuss ways to repair the harm.
This successful experiment led to the establishment of the Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program VORP under the auspices of the Christian Mennonite Committee, and provided the inspiration that led to other innovations in North America and beyond. As the programme grew and developed over the following decades, it generated a new paradigm for thinking about crime that eventually became known as 'restorative justice'. Around the same time that restorative justice was developing in North America, there were similar developments occurring in Europe.
Norwegian criminologist Nils Christie, one of the representatives of the abolitionist movement in Northern Europe, voiced his critique of the criminal justice system in his article "Conflicts as Property" He argued that the concept of crime was an abstraction that should instead be understood as conflicts between actual people.
Moreover, people have a proprietorial right to their conflicts. What transpires in the criminal justice process is that legal experts have stolen these conflicts away from the parties to which they belong, thereby denying victims and offenders the right to participate in the resolution of their case. Christie argued that conventional criminal justice processes do not meet the needs of victims, offenders, and the wider community and, rather, those with a personal stake in a case should be empowered to take ownership of their personal conflicts to better meet their needs.
The abolitionist thinking of Christie and other scholars e. The emergence of restorative justice has also paralleled other reforms and innovations in criminal justice, in particular: the influence of the victims' rights movement; and attempts to strengthen the role of victims in criminal proceedings justice for victims is examined in further detail in Module Diversionary and rehabilitative approaches in sentencing have also impacted on the development of restorative justice and, in some cases, culminated in the introduction of legislative provisions for the delivery of restorative justice services, particularly for children in conflict with the law.
This led to the birth of Family Group Conferencing, an innovation that has played a significant role in promoting restorative justice throughout the criminal justice system of New Zealand and in other parts of the world for analysis of the influence that Family Group Conferencing has had in Thailand, for example, see Roujanavong In addition to its application in the field of criminal justice, restorative justice has informed practice in other areas, such as child protection, educational settings see for example Karp and Schachter, ; Sellman et al.
See also Braithwaite and Tamim, , for analysis of lessons regarding the utilisation of restorative justice in post-conflict Libya. A significant limitation, in the field of restorative justice, is that much of the academic scholarship on restorative practices derives from, and relates to, the contexts of Europe, North America and countries such as Australia and New Zealand.
Accordingly, it is often the programmes in these countries that are well known. Yet scholars have also noted the importance of furthering research on restorative practices that build on traditional or customary restorative processes in regions such as Asia Chan, ; and Africa see, for example, Park, , on Sierra Leone; Robins, , on Uganda; and Kilekamajenga, , on Tanzania , and countries such as Pakistan see Dzur, , for example, for an interview with Ali Gohar.
A leading restorative justice advocate, Ali Gohar, has worked extensively to highlight the complementarity of restorative justice, and the indigenous system of Jirga a community based conflict transformation approach in the Pukhtoon belt of Pakistan See, for example, Dzur, ; Zehr and Gohar, ; and the website of the Just Peace Initiatives. Of considerable importance for promoting restorative justice at the global level are the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice Programmes in Criminal Matters , which provide standards and safeguards on the use of restorative justice initiatives.
Furthermore, the United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power underlines the value of informal dispute resolution processes to enhance conciliation and redress for victims for further information see Module 11 on Access to Justice for Victims.
These documents encourage Member States to promote greater community involvement when responding to offending, and to enhance diversion and alternatives to imprisonment. Of particular importance is the Council of Europe Recommendation 8 concerning restorative justice in criminal matters , which replaced Recommendation Rec No.
The CoE Recommendation aims to promote the development and use of restorative justice in the criminal justice context, and elaborates on standards for its use, encouraging safe, effective and evidence-based practice.
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Get the Answers App. Skip to content. Which Sentencing Goal Stresses Vengeance? Correct Answer Below Reveal the answer to this question whenever you are ready. The parole system is an important influence for reform of those in gaol, a basis of hope for earlier release and an incentive for rehabilitation of the offender: Bugmy v The Queen CLR at Non-parole periods are to be seen as a mitigation of punishment in favour of rehabilitation through conditional freedom by parole, once the sentencing judge has determined the minimum period of custody appropriate to the circumstances of the offence: Bugmy v The Queen at The non-parole period should not be seen as the shortest time required for the Parole Board to assess the prospects of rehabilitation.
It must represent the minimum period the offender must spend in custody having regard to the purposes of punishment and objective and subjective features of the case: Bugmy v The Queen ; Power v The Queen CLR Allowance cannot be made for rehabilitation by lengthening the overall sentence above that which is appropriate to reflect the objective seriousness of the offence: R v Royal [] NSWCCA See further discussion of special circumstances in Setting terms of imprisonment at [ ].
In Muldrock v The Queen CLR at [57], the High Court held that the Court of Criminal Appeal had erred in determining the structure of the sentence upon a view that the appellant would benefit from treatment while in full-time custody. This purpose is directed to making the offender liable to be called to account for his or her deeds. The purpose of denunciation is to condemn the offender for his or her conduct. Denunciation and impartiality : A fundamental purpose of the criminal law, and of the sentencing of convicted offenders, is to denounce publicly the unlawful conduct of an offender.
In the case of offences against children, which involve derogations from the fundamental human rights of immature, dependent and vulnerable persons, punishment also has an obvious purpose of reinforcing the standards which society expects of its members. In a case such as the present, it is important to bear in mind the denunciatory role of sentencing. Manslaughter involves the felonious taking of human life.
This may involve a wide variety of circumstances, calling for a wide variety of penal consequences. Even so, unlawful homicide, whatever form it takes, has always been recognised by the law as a most serious crime. The protection of human life and personal safety is a primary objective of the system of criminal justice. The value which the community places upon human life is reflected in its expectations of that system. Society is entitled to have the sentence imposed denounce the criminal conduct of the offender and, if the sentence does not do so, there has been an error in the exercise of the sentencing discretion.
The purpose of denunciation should be given more weight than in ordinary cases where a person such as a police officer, who is involved directly in the administration of justice, acts in a way that perverts the course of justice: R v Nguyen [] NSWCCA at [43]. This purpose permits the sentencer to set out the content of the victim impact statements of third parties providing the limitations upon the use of this evidence as then referred to in R v Previtera 94 A Crim R 76 is acknowledged: SBF v R [] NSWCCA at [89]—[90].
At common law, courts are always required to take into account the impact of criminal behaviour on victims for the purposes of determining the culpability of the offender: Siganto v The Queen CLR The law in relation to victims is further discussed at Victims and Victim Impact Statements at [ ]ff.
Not only must the community be satisfied that the offender is given his just desserts, it is important that the victim, or those who are left behind, also feel that justice has been done: Ryan v The Queen CLR per McHugh J at [46]. Not only must the community be satisfied that the criminal is given his just desserts, it is important that those whom the victims have left behind also feel that justice has been done.
Chief Justice Lamer at [80] explained that vengeance represents:. In Watts v R at [5], the court held:. In the interests of all the victims of the other [Form 1] offences the community was entitled to retribution, but again the large number of other offences did not bring commensurate arithmetic increase in penalty. Purposes of sentencing.
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