Justice: Stumbling Toward a Restorative Ideal (From Justice: The Restorative Vision, P 1-15, 1989, See NCJ-119505)

• NCJ Number: 119506
• Author(s): H Zehr
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 15 pages
• Corporate Author: MCC U.S. Office of Criminal Justice; MCC Canada Victims Offender Ministries Program
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Occasional Papers of the MCC Canada Victim Offender Ministries Program and the MCC U.S. Office of Criminal Justice, February 1989, Issue No. 7

Annotation

This article contrasts two perceptions of crime: retributive justice and restorative justice, pointing out that retributive justice emphasizes punishment while restorative justice emphasizes the offender's obligations to the victim.

Abstract

The current criminal justice system is based on a retributive justice model, with new solutions to escalating prison populations also based on the concept of punishment. Punishment has failed as a deterrent. Restorative justice, on the other hand, would take away the State's power to punish criminals and focus instead on how the offender could repair the damage done to crime victims and himself. Alternatives to inflicting pain through imprisonment should be explored. Low incarceration rates in the Netherlands should be examined as well as victim-offender mediation programs carried out in Great Britain. It is important to search for a new understanding of the role of the criminal justice system and a new language of justice. 27 references.