Restorative Justice

The current justice system in the United States is suffering from being overwhelmed, over crowded and no longer serving as an unbiased and fair system. It is impractical to think of replacing it all together but there is another idea gaining in popularity, Restorative Justice. Restorative Justice, according to “Restorative Justice on Line” (2007) is a notion of restoring things to what they were before a crime was committed. Make things right between a victim and an offender. If a person has committed a crime against another it can be said they have caused the other injury. Instead of being punished by the state Restorative Justice says they should be responsible for help in healing the injury they have caused. The victim should have some say in that will consist of. In the justice system now in use in the US known as Distributive Justice, the victim of a crime has little to no say in what the punishment should be. For the most part, the victim is left out of the process all together. In Restorative Justice both the victim and the offender work together to determine how the victim can be restored. This is accomplished through mediation. It can be as simple as the victim and the offender with one mediator or it can involve many more affected by the crime such as community members, the families of both victim and offender and religious leaders. The biggest key to Restorative Justice is the offender has to take responsibility for his crime. If the offender denies involvement or blames others for what happened, there is no way forward under a Restorative Justice System. Still, there is a lot of promise in Restorative Justice for taking a large burden off the over stretched legal system. A lot of crime involving minors can often be settled in a restorative manner. A case involving minor property crime can be settled quickly without having to get police, lawyers and judges involved. It can also work well with adult victims and offenders. In this paper, we will explore Restorative Justice in more detail. One, it is unlikely Restorative Justice can completely replace the current legal system but many crimes can be better dealt with in a Restorative framework. Two, there are many different formats Restorative Justice can take based on the situation, people involved and the greater community they live in. Three, we will consider some cases where Restorative Justice Practices have been used and considered effective. Last, we will examine what the future may have in store for Restorative Justice.