Everyday Canvas

Mulling over Restorative vs. Current Justice Systems

Prompt: Although present justice systems depend on punishment, do you think a restorative justice system--in which the criminals are healed of their ills, educated, and uplifted as to their outlooks on life--might work better for our societies?

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From time to time, many questions are raised about the fairness of the justice systems, since more often than not, whereas small crimes get huge punishments, more serious ones are let off easy.

According to Howard Zehr,in his books and articles, traditional criminal justice operates while asking these questions : Which laws are broken? Who did it? What is the deserved punishment?

Restorative justice, however, asks: Who is hurt and what are their needs? What are the causes? Who has a stake on either side? What is the appropriate process to bring together victims or victims’ loved ones and the criminals in an effort to pinpoint causes and make things right for both sides?

I think severe punishment works only rarely, but then should we let a heinous crime go unanswered, especially because some criminals have a way of escalating the severity of their crimes? Yet, when we are bunching people with lesser crimes and hardened criminals in prisons together, aren’t we, in fact, helping set up schools for crime?

On the other hand, most of the time when a terrible crime is committed, I hear the victim or those on the victim’s side ask for closure or justice, and I suspect both of those terms are used as synonyms for revenge. My question is, why do we let punishment stand in for revenge? Maybe if we said the emperor has no clothes and we called such words as what they are in gist, revenge, most of us would stop and think about how we are conducting our justice systems.

I agree that those who are incorrigible and a menace to others should be kept away from the society, so they can’t do any more harm. On the other hand, being human, people falter sometimes, especially if their teaching and background has been faulty or if they had a momentary lapse for any reason. Those people can be re-taught and emotionally uplifted, so they can become positively contributing members of society. This will be costly for sure, but isn’t keeping up the overcrowded prison systems costly, as well?

I also ask: What about the victims? Restorative justice emphasizes repairing the harm caused or revealed by criminal behavior. In other words, it operates from the standpoint that while crime hurts, justice should heal, as forgiveness also heals in spiritual practices, but can we expect all victims to forgive? And what about in the case of murder? Isn’t repairing the harm difficult because the trouble is: Who can bring the dead back to life?

I think, however, as an idea, restorative justice is a highly civilized concept. What I am wondering about is this: Are our societies ready for it? Shouldn’t the societies and nations be highly civilized themselves to deserve such action? After all, it is a fact that, in the current punishment systems, minorities receive the hardest slaps and, in their societal life, most difficult living conditions. Then, aren’t some criminals broken people to be fixed rather than wrongdoers to be punished?

While many questions hover around inside my head about the likelihood of restorative justice, or rather, how the practice of it should be conducted, I suspect that it works better than the extreme punishment systems. Case in point, many countries in Europe and especially Norway practice this type of justice to one degree or another. There is even a forum for it for the people working in social and justice systems.
http://www.euforumrj.org

Yet, another argument surfaces. Yes, restorative justice may work well in small nations like those in Europe, but would it work in a highly complicated country, a melting pot, that the United States is?

Still, given all the complexities, true justice can be gentler and may ask both the victims and the criminals to re-examine the masks they are wearing, even when restoration to the original state of calm may not be possible immediately. Then, for a kinder and more humane justice system to work, don’t we all need to ante up our understanding and acceptance of one another?