Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and offenders. It gives a different approach on how the society deals with justice. It contrasts with more punitive approaches where the primary objective is to punish the offender and satisfy legal principles. Van Ness and Strong text emphasize four different restorative justice (RJ) values which the authors believe to be “corner posts” of restorative justice practice. These values include inclusion, encounter, amends and reintegration. It is important to give a brief description of what these values. For instance, inclusion is indicated as a restorative justice value. Inclusion is described as the opportunity for direct and active involvement in the procedures that follow a crime.
Encounter as a value offers the parties to a crime that is, the victim and the offender, to opportunity to face one another. An encounter provides victims, offenders, and others the chance to decide what they consider relevant to a discussion of the crime. The encounter tends to humanize them to one another and permits them creativity in constructing a response that deals not only with the injustice that occurred but also with the futures of both parties. The formal criminal justice system limits the encounter that the victim has with the offender. It disregards any information that is deemed to be irrelevant to the crime at hand. The authors discuss different encounter approaches such as victim-offender mediation, conferencing, circles and impact panels. They advocate for the two parties to meet to get first-hand information about the emotions expressed by both sides, the understanding that the parties seek to have and finally the agreement that can be struck between both sides.
Amends are vital to restorative justice. An offender can make amends through apology, changed behavior, restitution and apology. It goes without saying, that some victims would be at peace if the perpetrator that did harm to them apologized for the atrocities committed. Facilitating a meeting between the victim and the offender offers an opportunity for the acceptance of responsibility on the offender’s side and coming to an agreement on how to make appropriate amends. When this is not possible, courts tend to offer restitution to the victim. Compensation is considered as the gauge. If sentencing of the offender will serve the purpose of restitution, then the court has to ensure that the offender has duly served his sentence for the atrocities he committed against the victim.
The issue of stigmatization is incumbent on both the victim and the offender. For restoration to occur, these parties need to find wholeness and establish themselves as participating community members. This can be achieved in four main ways, namely; protection, affirmation, practical and material help and lastly moral and spiritual support and care. As it follows, it is not a good thing when an offence is committed against you. The community can ensure that the victim is adequately protected and that such atrocity will not happen to him or her again. Both victims and offenders need affirmations of respect for their dignity and worth so that they do not feel like outsiders. For instance, when an offender has served his time in prison, the community should afford him some benefit of the doubt that he has changed and that he will not go back to commit the criminal activities he was engaged in before. He should be welcomed back to the society. The community should strive to make him feel at home and not as an outsider. Assisting with reintegration not only strengthens the victims and offenders but also serves to reinforce the values and resiliency of the community.
Of all the values, I think amends is the most significant value of restorative justice. This is so because once a victim and an offender are given the opportunity meet in a bid to resolve the issue at hand, an agreement is always struck. Even though it might seem to be the best solution at the beginning of the meetings, as time goes on people calm down and get to control their emotions. People get to express their heart most felt emotions. This enables them to understand the other’s point of view. Amends, as seen earlier can be done through apology changed behavior, restitution and generosity. An apology can be in written or oral form. The apology consists the acknowledgment that the offender committed an atrocity against the victim and that he regrets having done this. Expressing real emotions of regret and being sorry exposes a vulnerability that the court process can never get out of the offender. Witnessing offenders express regret may be for victims. Changed behavior entails not committing the offense again. The change of behavior can be therapeutic to the victims as they are assured that, by this, the offender will not be able to attack him or her again.
Even though it is advisable for parties to sit down and strike a deal before instituting court proceedings, this practice is not given the amount of legal force it requires. Amends go a long way to resolving disputes in a friendlier manner than the court process. It prevents the occurrence of bad blood between the victim and the offender. The state should advocate for this value in a bid to restore justice in the society. Having the offender offer a personal apology to the victim can go a long way in resolving a dispute than subjecting the same to the legal process that is more coercive in nature.
Works Cited
Daniel W. Van Ness, Karen Heetderks Strong. Restoring Justice: An Introduction to Restorative Justice. New York: Routledge, 2010.
