NCJ Number
126460
Editor(s)
B Galaway,
J Hudson
Date Published
1990
Length
236 pages
Annotation
Eighteen papers discuss perspectives on restitution and victim-offender reconciliation, applications of restitution and reconciliation, and the evaluation of restitution and reconciliation programs.
Abstract
Three papers outline the conceptual basis for a theory of restorative justice. The concept proposed rejects traditional justifications, both retributive and utilitarian, for imposing State punishment and suggests instead that the purpose of State intervention in criminal matters should be to achieve peace among the participants and to restore losses. This theme is further developed in the four national reviews of program applications of the concept of restorative justice: Great Britain, West Germany, North America, and Canada. Another paper notes that crime victims are often abused by the criminal justice system, as it uses victims for its own retributive ends without responding to either victims or offenders based on victims' interests and needs. A report on a survey of burglary victims in Minnesota indicates that crime victims give high priority to the opportunity to participate in case decisionmaking and disposition. Other papers consider the value of mediation and restitution programs within the native cultures of residents of the Canadian North; the nature of interactions among social workers, victims, and offenders in a mediation program; factors relating to victims' decisions to participate or not participate in victim-offender reconciliation programs; and the evaluation of restitution programs. The latter tend to show the short-term cost effectiveness of such programs compared to incarceration and traditional probation conditions. Chapter references, tables. For individual papers, see NCJ 126461-79.