The Seductive Vision of Restorative Justice: Right-Relation, Reciprocity, Healing and Repair Notes:

The Seductive Vision of Restorative Justice: Right-Relation, Reciprocity, Healing and Repair NOTES: * Focuses on repair instead of punishment, healing instead of inflicting further wounds. * Sees the individual victims rather than justice just being about the ‘state’. * Wrongful violation, not just a set of rules. * Community is the source of resolution in a conflict. * Compassion for both the victim and the perpetrator. Perpetrator is still held accountable for their wrongdoing. * It claims that imprisonment is cruel and counterproductive. * Instead of spitefully inflicting pain on the perpetrator as a form of ‘justice’ it offers an opportunity to heal and repair the damage done. * “Justice = imaginatively and actively created and enacted by individuals and the community”. * The perpetrator would be expected to be active in the participation of repairing the harm. * The perpetrator would then return “without stigma” back to the community. * The point of justice would no longer be vengeful suffering, would work toward the larger goal of building communities. * Even though we will never achieve this… at least we will always feel that we tried. * There was compelling evidence that the justice system was built so that males could just “get away with it”. * It seemed we could only say well… lets have harsher punishments for males and more compassion for female victims… but Restorative Justice offers a far superior alternative to this. * So Restorative justice seemed to say let’s work this out, let’s try fix the problems of intimate violence. * Perpetrators of sexual assault on women and children would be forced to look their victims in the eye. They would feel genuine shame. * It seems that it’s very rare for the public to be happy with the verdict that the offenders generally receive. There is apparently a longing for something more. * Restorative Justice seems to have a deeper soul than the