Restorative Justice

Howard Zehr makes clear in his Little Book of Restorative Justice that “restorative justice” isn’t a panacea. It doesn’t pretend to replace the the legal system, nor is it necessarily opposed to retribution (12-13).

Primarily, restorative justice is an effort to put the principle actors back at the center of the process of criminal justice – the victims, the offenders, and the communities that are damaged by crime. Victims, Zehr writes, “often feel ignored, neglected, or even abused by the justice process.” The very definition of crime excludes them, since “crime is defined against the state, so the state takes the place of the victims.” The rationale is that this depersonalization of the crime will inhibit feuds and vendettas, and turn the process into a rational, orderly, fair machine of justice. In practice, victims are left without information, often feel disempowered, and have no room for receiving restitution or vindication (14-15). Communities are inevitably affected by crime, but they don’t have a voice in the process either.

Offenders get bypassed too: “Little in the process encourages offenders to understand the consequences of their actions or to empathize with victims. On the contrary, the adversarial game requires offenders to look out for themselves. Offenders are discouraged from acknowledging their responsibility and are given little opportunity to act on this responsibility in concrete ways” (16). 

If the justice system is to address victims, it has to dig into the causes of crime and to recognize that offenders are often victims. This may sound woolily sentimental, but it’s not surprising that “studies sow that many offenders have indeed been victimized or traumatized in significant ways.” One prison psychiatrist has concluded that “all violence is an effort to achieve justice or to undo injustice.” Punishment doesn’t address this problem, and can add to it: “Punishment often reinforces the sense of victimization” (30-1). Zehr isn’t saying that offenders are excusable because they are victims. He is saying that restorative justice must attend to the real needs of offenders – needs for accountability, but also for putting right ways in which they have been wronged.

Family group conferences are often used in New Zealand’s criminal justice system. Zehr explains their function: They “are not designed simply to allow for the expression of facts and feelings and to develop restitution agreements. Because they normally take the place of a court, they are charged with developing the entire plan for the offenders that, in addition to reparations, includes elements of prevention and sometimes punishment. Even the actual charges may be negotiated in this meeting. Interestingly, the plan is intended to be the consensus of everyone in the conference. The victim, the offender, or the police can each block an outcome if one of them is unsatisfied” (50).

To repeat: Zehr doesn’t offer restorative justice as a global solution. But in a country where over 2 million are in prison, alternative approaches, especially those that focus on restitution for victims and responsibility-taking for offenders, are worth a careful look.