Restorative Community Justice

Restorative and community justice are plans that are introduced to the criminal justice that could potentially improve the formal procedures. Restorative justice is the process of an offender making a mends with their victim. For example, a school bully sits and discuss his/her reasoning for bullying, how they plan to change, etc. This plan may be effective but most times, victims could be frightened by their offender and may have a traumatic episode from flashbacks of the incident. This plan could be operative but not with certain crimes such as murder and rape. In regards to community justice, it’s the process getting the community involved by using resources provided to help prevent or reduce criminal acts. An example of community justice

These steps consist of mapping the system, documenting and assessing current policy and practice, gathering information on the offender population, identifying sanctions, services and programs, and identifying community resources. Mapping the system is the process of recognizing what sequence of events are from the initial arrest to hearing their sentence. For instance, mapping the system could consist of making a diagram of the arrest, arraignment, preliminary hearing and so forth. As for documenting and assessing current policies and practices, it is a brief description of how strategies and systems of certain agencies effect the criminal justice system. This involves making a step-by-step guideline of the effectiveness of each strategy or system implemented within the agencies under the criminal justice system. Gathering information on the offender population is a vital step of the criminal justice system guidelines. It allows investigation of the inclination and reason for arrest and incarceration rates. A statistical analysis can look at a specific area and try to understand why the offender population is so high or so low. Identifying sanctions, services, and programs serves as a prominent step as well. Every crime does not deserve time in prison so their must other options presented. Also, offenders need programs after release. Having other ideas of punishment could cut down the problem with overcrowding in prisons. And finally, identifying community resources is to help with eliminating or reducing recidivism. If an offender has something to do or focus on when they’re release, they’ll be less likely to commit an offense