Restorative Justice As A Way Forward To Reduce Reoffending In Youth Delinquency

 

 

Restorative Justice (RJ) is a relatively young discipline in the Criminal Justice system, aiming to enable a safe communication between victims of crimes and offenders. Evidence suggests that restorative interventions have been successful in serious and complex offences, and now a significant amount of work is focusing on the use of restorative approaches to support young offenders to provide opportunity to make amends for their actions and to reduce reoffending rates.

The elegant definition of Restorative Justice

The main aim of restorative intervention is to provide an opportunity for the victims to explain the impact a crime has had on them and for the offenders, a chance to make amends. The participation is completely voluntary and usually goes at a pace to suit everyone involved. It is imperative to understand that the restorative process does not encourage participants to apologise - it gives them the opportunity to apologise but it’s not about forgiveness, it’s about communication. If there is no apology it doesn’t mean it’s not successful, the process is led by the participants needs and preferences, and the outcome they wish to achieve from participating in the process.

During restorative conference, trained practitioners who are facilitating these meetings have to follow strict guidelines and procedures to ensure participants’ safety. Their most important feature is to be impartial and support safe communication between all involved.

The golden five restorative questions which are asked to both participants at the restorative conference are:

1. What happened?
2. What were you thinking?
3. How did you feel?
4. Who was affected by what happened?
5. What would you like to happen in the future?

For offenders - What needs to happen now to repair the harm?

These questions are the base of every RJ conference and the script is designed so that each participant is asked these questions and is given an opportunity to answer and respond to what has been said.

To sum up, RJ is a process which:

• Brings victims of crime and ASB together with the person or people that has caused them harm
• Encourages harmers to take responsibility for their actions
• Allows questions to be asked of each other and consequences explained
• Uses face to face or indirect communication
• Results in mutual agreements being made

The origin and philosophy of Restorative Justice

The origin of the use of restorative interventions to crime and conflict resolution is not an entirely new approach. Ancient cultures in the UK and worldwide have practised restorative approaches, some, for example in Asia and Africa ,as a basis upon which to build current legal systems (Elechi, 2006; Letha & Thilagaraj, 2013). When talking about use of restorative interventions and Europe and more specifically, in the UK – it was completely lost for a time to an emphasis on punitive retribution.

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