Restorative Justice: Response To Crime

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Restorative justice is the “response to criminal behavior that focuses on lawbreaker restitution and the resolution of the issues arising from a crime in which victims, offenders, and the community are brought together to restore the harmony between the parties.” Restorative justice is an alternative for sending offenders to jail. It holds the offender responsible for their actions, but has alternative ways to fix what they did wrong such as by helping the community and victims. Except in rare cases it is usually assigned to nonviolent offenders. It is not appropriate for all cases (“Restorative Justice” Britannica).
Howard Zehr came up with the first concept of restorative justice in the late 1970s. Restorative justice was mainly being discussed as an alternative for some offenders in America and Europe. However, it was not seriously being considered as an alternative to jail. By the 1990s the popularity was growing in many countries (Austria, Belgium, Canada, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, Turkey). Restorative justice is now an option for some in more than 300 communities in United States and more than 1,000 locations in Europe (Umbreit).
Twenty states have introduced and or passes restorative justice laws for their juvenile justice systems and thirty other states have restorative justice in their …show more content…

The offender is able to take direct responsibility for his or her behavior, learn the full impact of what they did, and develop a plan for making amends to the person(s) they violated. Some victim-offender mediation programs are called "victim-offender meetings" or "victim-offender conferences"

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