… these injuries exist on several levels and are experienced by victims, communities, and even offenders. The current policies and practice of criminal justice focus almost entirely on the offender as lawbreaker, filtering out virtually all aspects of crime except questions of legal guilt and punishment.
Van Ness, Daniel W.; Heetderks Strong, Karen. Restoring Justice: An Introduction to Restorative Justice (p. 4). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
The current criminal justice system has been called “The King’s Justice” because the way it is set up is that the King (the state) makes the laws and the alleged criminal until proven guity has broken them. The State then exacts a punishment from the offender, “do the crime, do the time” mentality eliminates the victim(s) and the community from the system.
Only in recent decades have “victim rights” been recognized, acknowledged, and made a marginal part of the adversarial winner/loser game that unfolds.
Only since the 70s has another model of justice come to the awareness of the public known as Restorative Justice but it is little known and even less put into practice, but when it has there is evidence that it gets much better outcomes.
Restorative justice is a system of criminal justice that focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community. It’s a different approach from traditional criminal justice, which primarily focuses on punishing the offender. The core idea is that crime harms individuals and communities, and justice should be about repairing that harm. This process often involves a meeting between the victim, the offender, and community members. The offender takes responsibility for their actions, and together, they decide how to best repair the harm done. The goal is to address the needs of the victim, hold the offender accountable, and reintegrate both parties into the community.
I engaged in a restorative process when a three time drunk driver killed two of my children back in 1994.
This is the first of several articles on Restorative Justice, a better way to repair the harms experienced in our communities, states, nation, and world.
