Restorative justice is an innovative approach to crime and wrongdoing. It is both a theory and a practice that aims to address harms and remedy wrongs through an idea of justice which engages three parties to “what happened”—the victim, the wrongdoer and their respective communities.
People often mistakenly use the term “restorative justice” to describe alternative forms of dispute resolution such as mediation. To complicate things further, there are many models and programs under the restorative justice umbrella. This makes it hard to explain just how restorative justice works. Nevertheless, there are some basic ideas that help to define it.
Retributive justice is familiar to most: a person commits a crime, and a judge and jury determine their punishment, typically prison.
But restorative justice takes a broader view of possible solutions to crime, focusing not only on holding the criminal offender responsible, but also requiring their active participation in constructing a remedy to address the harm caused.
Restorative justice requires the wrongdoer to agree to the restorative process from an initial position of acknowledging the wrong they have committed. They cannot plead “not guilty.” In this way, it differs significantly from the criminal justice system. By engaging the communities of both victim and offender (including friends and family of both), restorative justice embraces a broader view of who has been harmed when a crime or some other wrong is committed.
Restorative justice can be applied to many situations. Its primary advantage lies in its emphasis on responsibility and repair rather than accusation and punishment. As criminologist John Braithwaite observed, restorative justice is about “holistic change in the way we do justice in the world.”
This transformative approach shifts our response to wrongdoing by prioritizing accountability, repair and restitution. It centres the needs of those harmed, encourages wrongdoers to take meaningful responsibility and fosters a more expansive and inclusive sense of justice. ● Melanie Randall
