Jaquisha Magruder
Professor Soni
PSC 430
Final
Restorative justice takes an approach that focuses on the community as a whole. The victims, the offenders, and the community are all included in this approach towards justice. This approach allows the victims to take an active role, but it strongly pushes for offenders to take responsibility for their wrong doings. In doing this, the offender is repairing the damage they have done. They do so by giving back stolen money or possessions, apologizing, and doing work in the community. Restorative justice gives the victim and the offender the opportunity to focus on themselves. Restorative justice offers support to offender and helping to prevent future occurrences.
All effected by the crimes get the chance to have a discussion about their personal experiences and how it has effected them. The community must take an active role in addressing the crimes that have been committed. This can include speaking on very traumatic experiences that they have experienced and having to revisit them which can be very hard. The restorative justice approach is a way to encourage the reconciliation process. The main idea that is encouraged through restorative justice is that time heals.
Advantages of the restorative justice are that victims get to present their stories to offenders and this makes it more personal. The victims are able to speak directly to offenders and express how the crimes committed against them have effected their lives. This also provides a therapeutic experience for the victim. This will also make it so that the offender may be able to empathize with the victim and their experience. Offenders also have the option to have a hearing in a community conference rather than court. Another...
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... Tutu that South Africa could not move forward without confronting the past. The 22,000 testimonies heard over those years were heartbreaking and it was sad to hear that so many had suffered in silence. Desmond Tutu was deeply affected by the stories he heard, he became very emotional during some of the testimonies, but did not want to take attention away from the victims.
“Without forgiveness, there is no future”.
The archbishop had a sense of what people wanted and what they needed and wanted to help in finding ways to give it to them. The people in South Africa were very appreciative and it was therapeutic to take the stand and testify before Desmond. Forgiveness is a big aim for the commission and it was being implemented. The terrible crimes that were committed were not denied, but the people were able to take them head on and began their healing process.
According to Graham, reconciliation is both “… a goal in the sense that it aims to restore relationships or to promote agonism or mutual tolerance, respect, and dignity […] [And] it is a process because it requires multiple modes, steps, stages, and transformations across all levels of society and amongst all stakeholders in a conflict” (Graham 2015). Through reconciliation and the related processes of restorative justice, parties to the dispute explore and overcome the pain brought on by the conflict and find ways to build trust and live cooperatively with each other. Restorative justice seeks to have a positive impact on offenders by confronting them with the consequences of their actions and delineating their responsibilities, giving them both the opportunity to repair the damage caused to the victim and to work on finding a solution to their problems (Umbreit, Bradshaw and Coates, 1999). According to Philpott, there are six components of political reconciliation: building socially just institutions and relations between states, acknowledgement, reparations, punishment, apology, and forgiveness (Philpott
“Restorative justice is a process whereby parties with a stake in a specific offence collectively resolve how to deal with the aftermath of the offence and its implications for the future” (Munchie, 2004).
Restoration Restorative justice is based on bringing together the victim, the offender, and the community; all have equal parts in repairing the relationships destroyed by
This voluntary alternative gives the offender the opportunity to take responsibility for their actions and identify the impact they have had on their victim, while also giving the victim the chance to confront the offender and take steps to repair the harm done. The victim can ask the offender questions about the crime and the offender may apologise or make amends for their actions. Restorative justice is confrontational and can be difficult for both parties but is proven to help both the offender and victim. While it is confrontational for the victim, for some it can be better than testifying in court. Data shows that restorative justice greatly helps victims in their recovery from the offence. Although the benefits of restorative justice in adult offenders is unclear, it significantly reduces the number of reoffenders in youth. For this reason, restorative justice is mostly used for minor infringements and within the youth justice system.
It aims to describe an arrangement of the major political and social institutions of a society such as the constitution, legal system, economy, family, and so on as being fair. Fairness is also at the core of restorative justice. Unlike the retributive system restorative justice is concerned with reforming. Not just the offender but the wrongdoing itself. As previously mentioned, the victim is not primary subject of the retributive system the law or state is. This is an unfair assurance of power by the state over the victim, to the point they where the victim may even feel re-victimized. The State assess what was lost, the state gets to talk at the trial, the victim rarely gets a chance to even see the offender before the trial. By keeping the participants of the trial apart the likelihood of proliferating long lasting resentment, and emotional trauma increases. Dining both parties closure and healing. Rawls believes the state should only be the facilitator of these communications between the parties not key participant in the
According to Boyd (2015), “Restorative justice could mean different things to different people and many organizations claim to be practitioners of restorative justice” (p.328). Restorative takes a different approach of understanding a problem and how to find a suitable solution. For example, it creates the idea that the court system should treat everyone the same. No one should be marginalized base on his or her race, gender, and sexual orientation. Everyone should deserve to have equal rights. According to Spielthenner (2015), Formal Justice is the “Treatment of persons is formally just if they are treated equally if they are equals and their treatment is proportionate to their inequality if they are
“Restorative justice is an approach to crime and other wrongdoings that focuses on repairing harm and encouraging responsibility and involvement of the parties impacted by the wrong.” This quote comes from a leading restorative justice scholar named Howard Zehr. The process of restorative justice necessitates a shift in responsibility for addressing crime. In a restorative justice process, the citizens who have been affected by a crime must take an active role in addressing that crime. Although law professionals may have secondary roles in facilitating the restorative justice process, it is the citizens who must take up the majority of the responsibility in healing the pains caused by crime. Restorative justice is a very broad subject and has many other topics inside of it. The main goal of the restorative justice system is to focus on the needs of the victims, the offenders, and the community, and focus
Restorative justice is defined as “using humanistic, no punitive strategies to right wrongs and restore social harmony” (Siegel, 2008, p. 189). Instead of imposing harsh penalties on offenders like long prison sentences or even the death penalty, restorative justice calls for a more rehabilitative approach, such as reconciliation and offender assistance.
The program is modeled after similar programs that begun in the 1970s and 1980s in New Zealand and Australia (Lawson 2004). It is used in schools, juvenile courts, and youth centers. However, for this discussion I will use the facts from Catherine Lawson’s restorative justice study in Missouri. In Lawson’s writings she references Derek R. Brookes, who came up with the conclusion that restorative justice attempts to produce these three outcomes: reconciliation, reparation, and transformation. Reconciliation is stage where all the apologies happen. Reparation is the stage at which the offender takes responsibility for his or actions, by providing fair restitution to the victim and lastly transformation is the stage where the offender is re-guided back into society as a productive member and is out of the cycle of
Agreeing on a definition of restorative justice has proved difficult. One definition is a theory of justice that focuses mostly on repairing the harm caused by criminal behaviour. The reparation is done through a cooperative process that includes all the stakeholders. Restorative justice can also be explained as an approach of justice that aims to satisfy the needs of the victims and offenders, as well as the entire community. The most broadly accepted definition for restorative justice, however, is a process whereby all the parties that have a stake in a specific offence collectively resolve on how to deal with the aftermath. This process is largely focused around reparation, reintegration and participation of victims. That is to say, it is a victim-centred approach to criminal justice, and it perceives crime differently than the adversarial system of justice.
Barack Obama’s eulogy of Nelson Mandela is a beautiful, passionate speech which uses a range of different techniques: rhetorical, non-verbal, and language styles – to be able to connect and communicate his messaged effectively with his audience. Obama’s ability to combine his strong voice and tone control along with his powerful words create a sense of emotion which cannot be underestimated. Obama understands the means needed to influence others and understands how to execute presentations to benefit his professional and political credibility. It’s unfortunate surrounding the circumstances in which Barack Obama had to present this speech, but it’s a speech that will be known as one of the most powerful, moving, inspiring and passionate tribute to someone who was beloved by millions, and will be missed.
Nelson Mandela taught us that the humanity all of us share can help us transcend the sins some of us commit. There is no better example of the transformative power of tolerance and reconciliation than Nelson Mandela and his inspiring work in overthrowing the apartheid government in South Africa. He understood the power of words to change minds and the power of peaceful deeds to open hearts. His life reminds us that justice and tolerance can overcome even the greatest cruelty. Nelson Mandela faced one of the greatest evils of our time.
1. Thesis: Nelson Mandela’s courage brought justice to his country and greatly improved South Africa overall.
When Mary Catherine Parris was told that I would be talking to her about restorative justice, her response was, “Is that a real thing?” (personal communication, September 23, 2015). Through this assignment I realized that restorative justice is not talked about within the criminal justice system. For both of the individuals I spoke with, the idea of restorative justice seemed like a joke. In trying to persuade them both that restorative justice is a real thing, I was met with very similar beliefs and comments from both individuals. They both believed that restorative justice would not work and believed that some aspects of the approach were completely useless (M. C. Parris, & R. Clemones, personal communication, September 23, 2015). The responses
As the purpose of restorative justice is to mend the very relationship between the victim, offender, and society, communities that embrace restorative justice foster an awareness on how the act has harmed others. Braithwaite (1989) notes that by rejecting only the criminal act and not the offender, restorative justice allows for a closer empathetic relationship between the offender, victims, and community. By acknowledging the intrinsic worth of the offender and their ability to contribute back to the community, restorative justice shows how all individuals are capable of being useful despite criminal acts previous. This encourages offenders to safely reintegrate into society, as they are encouraged to rejoin and find rapport with the community through their emotions and