Restorative Justice: What is it?
By: Candace Julyan
How do we respond to injustice and wrongdoing--as individuals, as a group, as a community or society? For many, the response is that there are punishments for breaking rules. That has become our norm in the courts, in schools, and often in families. For several decades now, there has been an increasing awareness of other approaches to wrongdoing based on the ideas of Indigenous Peoples around the globe. Instead of looking at the offense as a breaking of rules, this perspective sees the offense as a harm to relationships and instead of punishment, this way of thinking proposes that those who committed the offense need to find ways to repair the harm.
Howard Zehr, author of Changing Lenses and The Little Book of Restorative Justice, created two useful tables that examine the differences between these two perspectives--the Criminal Justice Perspective and the Restorative Justice Perspective. He proposes that fundamental to each are different questions and different views of the situation.
Three Different Questions:
Criminal Justice:
What rules have been broken?
Who did it?
What is the consequence?
Restorative Justice:
Who has been harmed?
What do they need?
Who is responsible?
Two Different Views:
Criminal Justice
Crime is a violation of rules or laws.
Violations require punishment.
Justice requires the state to determine guilt and impose punishment.
Central focus: offenders getting what they deserve
Restorative Justice:
Crime is a violation of people and relationships.
Violations create obligations.
Justice involves victims, offenders, and community members making an effort to put things right.
Central focus: victims getting what they need and offenders responsible for repairing the harm
Restorative Justice requires a serious shift in our perspective on wrongdoing. Rather than focusing on punishing the offender, restorative justice seeks ways to repair the harm to the victim. For many, this is a significant paradigm shift--a different way of seeing and addressing crime.
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