Restorative Justice In Juvenile Justice

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RESTORATIVE JUSTICE The concept of restorative justice became a game-changer in juvenile justice system. Through the course of time, professionals explored every possible methods and approaches that could positively affect the children without the expense of harming their future and wellbeing. The idea of restorative justice is “administer justice that focuses or repairing the harm done to the victim and the community. (Save the Children-UK, 2005)” The four guiding principles are to: (1) Repair and restore the balance within the community. (2) restitution for the victim. (3) Ensure that the offender understand and take responsibility. (4) Help the offender to change and improve. In South Africa, this is practiced in their community throughout …show more content…

Furthermore, Children emphasized the importance and benefits of reintegration and rehabilitation. They highlighted the need for mental health and emotional support from their parents to understands themselves and capacitate them with skills in preparation for the life after rehabilitation most especially from the possible stigmatization in the society. Moreover, Children saw the need for more community interventions most especially for children within the poverty threshold or those who are in means to support themselves. (Johnson & Nurick …show more content…

The basis came from Shelden (1999) which states that “youths’ exposure to the justice system may be more harmful than beneficial”. Moreover, It was believed that children who were diverted to community based intervention are less likely involved in future delinquency (Whitehead & Lab, 2001) In the book, Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention, Assessment, and Intervention; It highlighted that diversion is beneficial to the youth, community, and society. Furthermore, It also discussed that diversion fill the gaps of the formal juvenile justice system that diversion effectively reduced the labelling and stigmatization and the rate of recidivism. It also serves a deterrence, a net widening – where youth are given vast number of services rather than the prescribed number of service, and a balanced and restorative justice – where children are made accountable to their actions, to the community and the society as whole. One of the recommendations are to further improve the programs and services given to CICLs. It would also be better if they will be engaged in a community-based intervention. (Redding, et.al,

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