Discussing Restorative Justice

After my talk last Monday at the Adler Graduate School I had a request from one person for help in defending the concept of restorative justice. Obviously I can only respond with guesses as to the objections. A few points might help. First of all, back to the definition I cited: "Restorative justice is a theory of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm caused or revealed by criminal behavior.  It is best accomplished through cooperative processes that include all stakeholders." It is one of three concepts of justice which were presented, the other two being retributive justice, focusing on punishment, and social justice, attempting to reduce crime-producing conditions at ground level. 

It's natural to want to inflict pain on the offender as in retributive justice, and there are those who argue that the result would be reduction in crime as people anticipate what might happen to them if they were to offend. Another argument is that criminals are kept away from society so they can't offend again. The question I raised on Monday was whether and how well that approach works to reduce crime. 

Restorative justice evolved in part through the recognition that the primary focus of retributive justice is on the accused, leaving the victim on his or her own to heal. Seen in this way, restorative justice does not argue against punishment for crime so much as for paying more attention to the needs of the victim.  Hence the word "restorative." It has broadened, however, to include healing of the criminal, even if or while he or she is incarcerated or suffering some other punishment. There is growing evidence that it works to reduce crime, and to salvage the contributions both victim and offender can make to society.

Both retributive justice and restorative justice operate after the fact. There are those of us who feel strongly that the goal of crime reduction is best met by an increase in social justice. Yes, that's a huge job, but so is the maintenance of our penal system.

On Monday I spoke for over an hour, with the additional help of charts and handouts, so I hope it's clear that this is a sampler of a much more complicated issue.