Restorative Criminal Justice

The criminal justice system does many things for our society. It provides us with a place to put criminals. It acts as a rehabilitation center for those criminals so that when they come out of jail or prison they can reintegrate into society. The criminal justice system provides us with a forum in which we can solve disputes legally which is the court system. It also acts as a deterrence for potential future offenders by putting someone in jail or prison. The most important roles of the criminal justice system however are crime control, rehabilitation, due process, nonintervention, equal justice and restorative justice. These are the most important because these roles can be seen as the core of the criminal justice system. This is the glue

Equal justice is justice that is handed down the same way from person to person based on precedent from past cases and situations. Restorative justice is the rehabilitation of an offender through the victim and the community. Equal justice is supposed to be what our country stands on, however, we have had problems with that ever since our country was founded. Although we have gotten way better compared to when this was first thought of, we still have a long way to go. Equal justice is more of an idea than something that is actually carried out and some will fight me on this point but it is true. It’s true because it can sometimes elude the system and people who deserve to serve time will walk free while an innocent man is getting incarcerated for something he didn’t do. That’s not equal justice, as a matter of fact, that isn’t justice at all. Restorative justice is something that actually gets carried out and if it eludes the system then that is fine because it is based off of the victim meeting their victimizer and trying to make amends for what previously happened. To me, there are only certain cases where I see this working such as a younger offender and an older victim. For example, a teenager steals an old lady’s purse and when exposed to restorative justice, the teenager has to give back all the money that they stole. It has nothing to do with handing out justice equally, it’s about restoring the feeling of safety and peace of mind to the victim and the community as a