Criminal Justice Vs Restorative Justice

Restorative justice is a relatively new development within the criminal justice system, which focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders and the victims of their crimes. Rather than focus on punishing the offender, restorative justice works to reconcile the offender with their victims and community. This new form of justice places an emphasis on the interpersonal aspect of crime, and works to better each individual offender’s and victim’s experience with the criminal justice system. The individuality of the process shifts the focus to ask who has been hurt, what do they need and how can it best be provided. The restorative justice system differs from the normative criminal justice system in its core values. In the U.S., the criminal justice

While these meeting are very individual, many of the victims hope to achieve similar goals. In each of the four cases depicted in Beyond Conviction, the victims wanted the opportunity to ask questions and receive answers about why and how the crime occurred, to express the feelings that they were unable to in court and to show the offenders how they had impacted their lives, and to gain closure. The goals of the offenders tended to vary much more than the goals of the victims but the four offenders in the documentary all wanted to apologize to the victim and gain forgiveness and to provide answers and closure for the victim. In the cases presented, the four pairs seemed to be genuinely satisfied with the experience and reported that they were glad they participated. Many of the victims reported feelings of relief after their meetings and that they had received long awaited closure. While the victims reported being happy with the outcome, this process seemed to give even more satisfaction to the offender. Of the cases presented in the film, all of the offenders felt that they regained some of the honor they lost when they committed the crime, and felt relief at the ability to apologize and let the victim know their side of the story outside of a courtroom

The avoidance of this approach in the system stems from the highly stressful and emotional nature of it. Many times, this approach isn’t used because the victim and offender don’t match the guidelines of it, not each pair is ready or in a place to face each other. There also aren’t many victims willing to endure the emotional strain that would be placed on them in the meeting, who would prefer to avoid the situation