Talk:Restorative justice

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Whoa! Wait a minute. Under the column Retributive justice, we have:

Victim mostly ignored and sidelined

This is decidedly not the case. In fact, some would argue that retributive justice is the only theory of justice where the victim's rights are respected. I personally don't agree with that but I think it points out a large flaw in this comparison. CyborgTosser 21:19, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

There may be some jurisdictions whose retributive justice system are very progressive, but usually the victim has very little say in what happens. A typical experience of a victim goes something like this: They make a police report, hear nothing for awhile, and then get a subpoena that says, "Come to court on xx/xx/20xx at 8:30 AM." They take a day off of work, wait around till afternoon for the case to be called, then watch from the pews as the offender, his lawyer and the prosecutor go up there and announce a plea bargain has been made, which may include some restitution decided by the court.
Some victims rights groups dislike restorative justice because they think it's soft on criminals, but the way the system is usually set up is that if the offender won't take responsibility, or won't agree to restitution, then that outcome gets reported back to the judge. So there is always the court to fall back on, if restoration doesn't work out. Nathanlarson32767 18:40, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It seems you are not comparing retributive justice to restorative justice as theories of justice, but a particular restorative approach (admittedly the only approach the article focuses on) to the current criminal justice systems in most of the world, presumedly chosen as examples of retributive justice because they have roots in traditional retributive justice. Our current justice systems are not entirely retributive, in fact I would argue that they are not even mostly retributive, at least in the US where during the 1960s and 1970s the shift was overwhelmingly away from retributivism and many of the problems introduced to the system during this time still remain.
If the point of the discussion of victims' rights (and the comparison in general) is to compare a new approach (newly implemented, not new in concept) to the existing approach and show the advantages of this new approach over our current system, I don't have the expert knowledge to argue with this (although I am skeptical until I have read the reports). However, it should not be pretended that this is a comparison between restorative and retributive justice. That is what I am trying to address.
As for the specific concern I raised and your response, one type of retributive justice (the more traditional type) argues that the punishment for wrongdoing should be proportional to the harm caused to the victim. One justification for this is that the victim has a right to this retribution. As I have said, I am not in this camp, but it does have its supporters, and to those people retributive justice is the only approach that considers victim's rights. This is enough to show that it is not an uncontroversial fact that restorative justice puts more emphasis on victims' rights than retributive justice, and that's why we need to show both sides. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 18:53, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm not sure what type of shift there was in the 1960s and 1970s away from retributive justice. I know that in Virginia, the main sentencing options before the early 1990s for juvenile offenders were probation, community service, etc. I'm not sure whether those would count as retributive justice or not, although the offenders probably view them as punishment, because they involve restrictions on freedom. Anyway, around the late 1980s/early 1990s, more juveniles were committing serious crimes, which led to legislatures authorizing longer prison terms for minors. That was also around the time that the first Restorative Justice Programs were created in Virginia. In most jurisdictions in the U.S. that have restorative justice, the two systems coexist. A court might order a combination of retribution and restoration.
Looking back at what you wrote, it seems that we might have a difference of terminology. There appears to be a fine line between the two systems at times. Both of them have punishments that vary based on the severity of the offense. If an offender, for instance, causes $200 damage to a house, he might have to pay $200 in restitution under restorative justice. If it were $2,000, he might have to pay $2,000. I suppose under true retributive justice, the punishment would be to have damage done to the offender's house. Is that a correct interpretation of the difference between the two systems?
I agree that the table was biased. Even people involved with restorative justice would say that not every case is suitable for restorative justice. If the offender is remorseless, that won't lead to a conference that is respectful to the victim, and most facilitators will send that type of case back to court. Also, if the victim is not interested in participating, restorative justice will usually be less effective. So, retributive justice is not always based on "ignorance and fear"; it's just a system that complements restorative justice, exists alongside it, and fulfills different purposes.
Another inaccuracy with that table is that sometimes a crime really is against the state. For instance, in one case, a juvenile threw eggs at a police car. He was referred to restorative justice and ended up having to wash a parking lot full of police cars. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 19:55, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The shift away from retributive justice wasn't so much in the types of punishments that were handed out but the amounts and how they were administrated. Under a system of pure retributive justice (this applies to all varieties thereof), an offender showing remorse is of little to no consequence in sentencing. Thus, I don't think the US or Canada (or perhaps very many countries at all) ever had a purely retributive system. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a trend, largely starting in California, to make such considerations important both in sentencing and in how much of the sentence the offender actually had to carry out. Parole, for instance, underwent large changes. Also, plea bargaining increased. Much of the public opinion and rationale behind this came from a restorative theory. However, this was not restorative justice in what I've called the narrow sense that this article is about. The restoration was more focused on rehabilitation of the offender than on restoration of the community or restitution to the victim. Perhaps I am using nonstandard terminology to call this "restorative justice" at all, but my point is that it was a trend away from retributive justice.
Parole and plea-bargaining don't count as restorative justice because they don't do anything to repair the harm caused by the crime. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 02:03, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Again, this is perhaps a misuse of terminology on my part. I have seen the term restorative justice used to apply to any practice based on a theory of criminal justice that attempts to fix something, whether it be the damage from the offense, or the tendency of the offender to commit such offenses. If there is another standard term for this general theory, I will stop calling it restorative justice. I don't aruge that parole and plea bargaining are not restorative justice as described here. The point is, things like parole and plea bargaining are not retributive justice either. They are part of an attempt to move away from retributive justice. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 07:05, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I would like to use your example of doing damage to an offender's house to point out that there is more than one variety of retributive justice that could be called (at least by its supporters) pure retributive justice. There is a question of whether the amount of punishment should be proportional to the amount of harm caused (not necessarily equal). Some retributionists say the punishment should be equal, some say it should just be proportional, but there are some that advocate a different way to determine the appropriate amount of punishment (as noted in the retributive justice article). Then there is the completely separate question of whether the type of punishment should be determine by the type of harm caused. As you can imagine, some say yes, some say no. So you are correct to say that pure retributionists would want the offender's house to be damaged, with the caveat that this only applies to supporters of one particular variety of retributive justice.
If all these different ideas for how to punish offenders, which vary in severity, proportionality, and nature of punishment, all count as retributionism, then it seems that the definition of retributive justice boils down to it being retaliatory - punishing the offender in some way, without requiring him to repair the harm. If the punishment were that he were required to repair the harm, it would be restorative. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 02:03, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
To be retributive: It is necessary (but not sufficient) that the actions taken are punishment to the offender. It is not necessary that the actions do not repair the harm (it is also, of course, not necessary that the actions do repair the harm; retributive theory itself does not say whether or not the harm should be repaired). In fact, in some cases retributive justice and restorative justice might advocate the same actions. For example, if I steal a car, both retributive and restorative justice demand I give it back. The difference is in why they would advocate this particular action. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 07:05, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Another point that I didn't make before is that a lot of things supporters of restorative justice don't like about the current legal systems are things that are wholly or at least partially independent of the fact that the legal systems have retributive roots - the lack of participation of the victim, for example. Some of the problems in fact are completely avoided in a purely retributive system, such as the problems with plea bargaining.
That is a legitimate point. The confusion comes from the fact that the current court system, which people in the restorative justice movement refer to as "retributive justice," usually doesn't let the victim have much input, while most restorative justice programs do. Also, the state is the plaintiff in the current court system; the victim is not a party to the case. In Victim-Offender Mediation (a common form of RJ), the victim and offender are the parties to the case and the state's facilitator is a referee between them. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 02:03, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I consider myself a retributionist, but since my political views overall are more nearly utilitarian, I do like to consider whatever works or might work better, including restorative justice if that's what the data shows. This means the largely anti-restorative justice stance I take here is probably an overreaction to the previously biased content of the article. But the objections I brought up are ones that people are seriously putting out there. Maybe the article could use more on public opinions of restorative justice and public perception of the difference between restorative and retributive justice, but I'm definitely not an expert on this. I think perhaps some of the ideas in this discussion could make its way into both this article and the retributive justice article. Any ideas? CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 00:21, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Not to get all anecdotal, but there are definitely times when victims appreciate having a restorative aspect to the justice system.. Some kid shot out my car window with a BB gun, and the offender ended up getting caught and paying me for the window.. I definitely appreciated that.. I wouldn't have minded meeting him and explaining the impact of the crime (i.e. having to sit in a wet car seat for a week after it rained, and exposing my car to being robbed). That might have made an impact on him.. Then again, maybe not.. Different things work for different offenders. That is why it's good to have a justice system that uses elements of both theories. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 02:03, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't disagree that there is an advantage to have both retributive justice and restorative justice at the disposal of the legal system. However, along with your anecdote, I feel you imply (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the same solution would not be possible under a purely retributive system. This is not the case. To be fair, it is true that one version, the one that advocates punishment being like in both amount and nature to the harm caused, would demand that the offender's car window be shot with a BB gun (if possible), but this is only one kind of retributive justice (the "eye for an eye" variety). If I were to support, for example, monetary punishments for all minor offenses, then retributive justice would require me to fine the offender the amount of the damages to your window. What is done with the money after that is outside the realm of pure retributive theory to decide. However, because one of the common justifications of retributive justice is that it gives the victims and the community a feeling that justice has been done, it is entirely compatible with that justification to decide that in such cases that the harm caused was monetary, the victim should be given the money. So the big difference in this example as I see it is that restorative justice, in theory and in practice, guarantees that you get paid for your window; retributive justice, in theory, allows for that possibility but does not guarantee it, and in practice, may or may not guarantee that you get paid for your window, depending on decisions outside the realm of retributive theory to decide. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 07:05, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The scope of this discussion makes me think it would be appropriate to have an article Comparison of restorative and retributive justice to keep the article on each theory clean and to the point. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 07:05, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Note: the following comments are about a table that is no longer in the article

By the way, most of that table is NPOV. I'm putting a notice on the main page. CyborgTosser 21:21, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Ok, to start discussion, here is the table from the article, with my comments about what seems false, confusing, or non-NPOV:

Retributive Justice: Restorative Justice:
Crime is violation of state (e.g., Texas vs. Lee)

but consideration of harm caused to another is important in retributive justice

 One person harms another - direct responsibility
Focus on blame Focus on problem-solving
Adversarial relationship (lawyers fight it out) Dialog and negotiation (victim & offender)

adversarial relationship is certainly possible in restorative justice as well; it is not a magic solution that automatically resolves conflict
Pain/punishment Restitution/restoration
Interpersonal conflicts are obscured - Individual vs. State Conflict recognized and valued - solutions sought

this statement makes little sense in the context of criminal justice
One social injury replaced by another

retributive punishment is not a social injury in the point of view of retributive justice

 Focus on repair of social injury
Competitive lawyers and points of view

true of any justice system with lawyers (if this were not the case, there would be no need for lawyers)

 Discovery and social interests served

implies that social interests are not served by retributive justice
Victim mostly ignored and sidelined

very far from the truth, see comments at top

 Victim rights affirmed
Offender passive (does the time)

not always, punishment can be constructive (as long as it is still punishment)

 Offender to take responsibility & make restitution
Offender merely has to take punishment Must learn impact of their crime and how to make right

ideally, yes, but less than successful in practice
Purely legal - devoid of moral, social, economic, etc.

in most systems that use retributive justice, this is not true at all

 Whole context must be considered
Debt to state is abstract Debt is to victim with state facilitating
Stigma of crime is unremovable

not true; once the wrongdoer has "paid his debt", the stigma is unnecessary

 Removed through restoration of Shalom (peace in the land)

unfortunately, the sociological conditions necessary to ensure this are never fully satisfied
No repentance or forgiveness Possibility of both
Depends on a representative Direct involvement

this is confusing, needs clarification
Fear and ignorance

completely non-NPOV, prejudiced against supporters of retributive justice

 Courage and knowledge
Punitive model is broken Evaluate and replace with alternative sentencing
All of society pays for prisons and associated costs - lousy return on the dollar Society pays for treatment and resolution - good return on the dollar

the "return on the dollar" is often not to society, but to the victim

In addition, the use of the word "state" in the table is not entirely accurate because 1) not all retributive justice is accomplished by a state, and 2) the state is usually seen as a facilitator, even in retributive justice. CyborgTosser 22:12, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] In response to commenter

When I was reading down through the comparison list, I too felt that the language used was loaded, in many ways. Especially religiously, like Shalom. But then I remembered that most of the work done on restorative justice has been done within a religious context, so I figure that is okay. I also feel the table is vague when it uses terms like "direct involvement." But I would also like to add a few comments in response to the previous discussion. The united states largely works within a retributive justice system, and many of the attritubtes in the list I can see in real life. Victims in the united states are sidelined in many ways. They do not have a choice to forgive, which is the most important way that they are taken out, and the relationship becomes between the offender and the state. If a victim ends up wanting to drop the charges, in anything other than a civil case, once he or she has notified the police, the crime is automatically considered to be against society, and the victim must proceed with painful court processings, as well as spend a lot of time and energy "pushing charges" when he or she may not want to in the first place. Also, the stigma of incarceration is never removed in this society. Even if the stigma is ideally unnecessary, past-offenders cannot wipe their history clean. Employers, especially, but also landlords, banks and credit companies ask their prospective workers, renters and customers about a criminal background. We do not let past offenders fully integrate back into society, free from the stigma of having being in prison.

Comment to above statement: I was the one who included the table originally. It would only be fair to expose my point of view. I'm glad to see it has stimulated good discussion and I find many comments useful. Since 1980, I've worked in prison ministry and my comparison was not from an academic viewpoint or to be understood entirely with no expansion. I use this chart as a discussion stimulation to show primarily a biblical restorative justice. Of course, no system is purely retributive or restorative, nor is either without its problems. I believe punishment should be a part of most offender's sentence.

To me, one of the main question becomes, "What condition do we want the offenders to be in when they return to society?" Since over 95% do eventually get released and over half make the return trip to prison, what should society's response be? We ought to rethink the US's tendency to lock up more and more people. We now (2005) have over 2.1 million behind bars - not including most county or smaller jails. That's a lot of people that we are forcing through a prison experience. What are we doing with them in prison and what preparations are we making for their release?

The stigma, again primarily in the US, is almost unremoveable. I work with ex-offenders every day and see the raw prejudice shown in many employers and rental property. Once company policy is set, it no longer matters, in most cases, who the person has become meanwhile and what they have done with their lives. Most rental property in major cities disallows ex-offenders no matter how long they have been out, what their credit rating is or what they have contributed to society. I think we should move toward an ex-ex-offender status, that is, after a given amount of crime-free time, a person's record should be expunged - only to be resurrected if they commit another crime. Other countries have already moved toward this with varying amounts of time out and other conditions. This way a person could apply for a job or apartment and be treated like any other citizen.

Obviously the whole topic is complex and shaded by many points of view. My hope is that people will join in a public dialog to examine what we are doing. Examine our incarceration rate and you'll see it has grown very fast over the last 20 years. In 2004, the crime rate went down and prison population still increased. The US now has about 6 million either behind bars or already released or about 1 in every 37 adults. According to the Christian Science Monitor, "If current trends continue, it means that a black male in the United States would have about a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison during his lifetime. For a Hispanic male, it's 1 in 6; for a white male, 1 in 17." The trends look even worse extrapolated over the next few decades. They go on to say, "These new numbers are shocking enough, but what we don't see are the ripple effects of what they mean: For the generation of black children today, there's almost an inevitable aspect of going to prison," says Marc Mauer, assistant director of The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington. "We have the wealthiest society in human history, and we maintain the highest level of imprisonment. It's striking what that says about our approach to social problems and inequality."

Whatever term you want to give it, by putting bigger percentages of people behind bars without considering the long term consequences is extremely short-sighted. I have been a victim several times over and am not advocating we have no incarceration, but that we should consciously look at the whole process of criminal justice and begin making changes that will be better for all of us. If you include criminals, victims, criminal justice professionals (from police and lawyers to guards) and all their families, you are talking about impacting from one in four to one in five people. That's huge. So my main point remains - let's talk and make some changes.

[edit] Expansion of the article / Resources available from Prince William County

Are there plans to expand this article? It could use some more facts to back up the assertions made in the table. I will see about getting ahold of some statistics about recidivism that have citable references. The Office of Dispute Resolution in Prince William County, VA has some on file. Another individual to contact would be Phyllis Turner-Lawrence, who has accumulated a lot of research on restorative justice, and was the first director of Restorative Justice in that county. [1]

A few years ago, a lengthy report was written about improving the system in that county, since initially there were problems handling cases on a reasonable timeline. (That problem has since been largely resolved.) That report has transcripts of interviews of probation officers, facilitators, etc. from all over the Prince William County judicial system, talking about their views of the system. I will see about getting ahold of that.

Overall, in Prince William County, offenders who went through restoration had much lower recidivism rates than those who went through the retributive justice system. That is one of the main considerations in whether a juvenile diversion program is successful, from the state's point of view.

It would also be good to note that some cases are more suitable for restoration than others. Some examples of factors in favor of sending a case to restoration are:

  • The crime has a readily identifiable victim (i.e. not truancy or marijuana possession)
  • Victim(s) are willing to participate
  • Offender(s) admit responsibility for the offense

Nathanlarson32767 18:23, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Victimless crimes are an interesting case. Neither restorative nor retributive justice offers clear and consistent justification for corrections of any kind. If we are to have victimless crimes, then we must turn to deterence theory to justify punishment. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 07:12, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Statistics

I am working on finding recidivism statistics for juvenile offenders in Prince William County who did not go through restorative justice. The statewide recidivism rate for juvenile offenders who don't go through restorative justice is about 80%. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 18:35, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Retributive justice

In reference to the retributive justice article, do you have any more details about "the recent practical failings of restorative justice"? I am writing an article on restorative justice that will include 2001 stats from Department of Justice Canada showing restorative justice has lower recidivism than retributive justice[2]. Most of the data I have found (such as studies by University of Minnesota professor Mark Umbreit) show that restoration has better rates of victim and offender satisfaction as well. I will copy this message to the retributive justice talk page. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 19:34, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I can find some info, but give me a couple weeks. I will see what sources Michael Davis cites in his book on the subject, but unfortunately I left it at school. As far as your question, the "recent practical failings" I refer to were recent in the 1980s (I thought it was clear from context but you can clarify if you think it is unclear. I am refering to an approach that started in California and became the popular approach to corrections in the US in the 1960s and 1970s. I believe recidivism actually increased (but I'll have to check). However, it wasn't quite the same as restorative justice in the narrow sense that the article is about, and I think there is perhaps a problem with terminology here that should be fixed before arguing any further, because we may not be arguing about the same thing. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 18:31, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
All right. If you can find anything specific about problems with restorative justice in the 1980s, that could be a good addition to the restorative justice article. Recidivism is the type of thing that takes longitudinal studies to measure. Those stats tend to be hard to come by. As late at 2000, Department of Justice Canada was reporting that the data were inconclusive (see The Effects of Restorative Justice Programming: A Review of the Empirical. However, by 2001, they apparently felt confident in saying that RJ was associated with lower recidivism rates (see The Effectiveness of Restorative Justice Practices: A Meta-Analysis), although with the caveat that there was a "file-drawer" problem, whatever that is. I will copy this discussion to the Restorative Justice page. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 18:49, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
As I promised, I have looked for the sources I mentioned. However, I think they are not particularly pertinent to the discussion, as it has become clear to me that there is largely a problem in terminology. I was mistaken that Michael Davis refers to a the wider sense of a theory of justice that I have called restorative justice in the wider sense as "restorative justice" at all. I know I have seen the phrase used as such, but given the discussion here, it is clear to me know that this is a less common usage than what this article is about. With this in mind, I will change retributive justice accordingly.
As a sidenote, I was also off with the dates. The experiments in a reform system of punishment (what I had originally refered to as restorative justice) began in the 1950s, and it was clear they had failed before the 1980s.
I hope this is of some help in clearing up any confusion. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 10:59, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology

This article and this discussion page have a problem with terminology that luckily seems to be localized. "Retributive justice" is I believe being used as a synonym for "current criminal justice systems in the US, Canada, etc." when there are in truth large differences. In contrast, this mistake is not made on the retributive justice article.

I feel like I may be making too big a fuss about this problem of terminology, but I really can't be certain whether or not I am actually in disagreement with those people here who are disagreeing with me, because of this barrier. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 19:08, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Most people involved in the restorative justice movement are accustomed to contrasting their restorative justice programs with the current criminal justice system. They make that contrast when they are explaining it to legislators, victims, offenders, etc, since those audiences are more familiar with the current criminal justice system than with any purely retributive justice system. The current justice system, then, ends up being nicknamed "retributive justice" and the wide variety of restorative justice programs calling themselves such end up being collectively nicknamed "restorative justice".
In academic settings, people are more likely to contrast restorative justice systems to purer retributive justice systems such as certain parts of the Code of Hammurabi, because the audience is more likely to be familiar with Hammurabi. Hammurabi usually doesn't get mentioned much in legislative debates, since there aren't any bills to implement his system.
Anyway, some "restorative" systems mentioned in this article, such as Community Restorative Boards, have many similarities to the current court system.. so, I have to wonder, does court-ordered restitution also count as restorative justice? What about community service? — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 01:25, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I will ask someone in the Restorative Justice movement about that and get back to you.. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 02:06, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Restitution

According to Dorothy Larson, Director of the Office of Dispute Resolution in Prince William County, victim-offender mediation is associated with higher rates of restitution payment than cases that go through the court system. The reason is that the victim and offender agree on the timetable, form, and amount of restitution in the conference, and also get to know each other. Court-ordered restitution, decided unilaterally by the judge, frequently goes unpaid in Virginia. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 03:07, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I hesitate to put it in the article until I have citable stats though.. There is info out there though.. I'm just too slothful at the moment to find it.. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 03:08, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Information from Phyllis Lawrence in re: terminology

(Thank you to Phyllis for supplying this information.) — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 00:39, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Interesting dialogue you two are having, and I hope you'll share any stats that you find with me.

Re community service and court-ordered restitution -- it is good to consider practices on a continuum. Some places that discuss this are listed below. When anything is court-ordered (except I guess for when the court just puts into an order the outcomes of a victim-offender dialogue), there is the question of how much victim input and offender participation (buy-in) exists. The more you have of each, the more restorative. Also, there is the RJ principle of “competency development’ – so community service should either be connected with the crime and making repair, or be about developing competency in the offender that will serve him/her in the future.

Actually, Umbreit and Zehr both worked on having courts look at restitution as an alternative to punishment, as or before they got into V-O work. They and some other RJ pioneers had an organization that worked on that in the 80’s and early 90’s, RESSTA. (I remember the acronym, but not the words)

So on the continuum, anything that has an element of repairing harm, rather than just punishment, is moving in the RJ direction. The more victim, offender, and community input, and other factors (see chart under item 1 below) moves a practice to be more restorative. So I do think that the wikipedia article’s use of “retributive” might be explained as one end of a continuum, and indicate that many current systems are using some elements of repairing harm, but are not nearly as restorative as they could be. This is the risk the movement has been facing: as the buzz word/phrase has caught on, courts and systems are claiming that by ordering restitution and CS and apologies, they are “already restorative.”

1. http://www.mrjc.ca/pages/aboutrj.htm#5, see the list of least and most.

2. In the section on the 1999 conference, see this reference

The presentations at the 1999 conference have led to the publication of a book: “Victim-Offender Mediation in Europe. Making Restorative Justice Work” (2000) , available from Leuven University Press.

In the first part of this book victim-offender mediation and restorative justice are being considered from a more theoretical point of view. In his contribution, Martin Wright contends that there is no hard-and-fast division between measures that are restorative and those that are not. Rather there is a spectrum. He describes ‘unilateral’, ‘democratic’ and ‘authoritarian’ Restorative Justice as three points on this continuum

You can also reference this page about Genesee County, NY, which adopted a restorative, holistic approach before the term “restorative” was widely used, if at all. They call it “Genessee Justice”

take care,

PT

Thank you. This information is useful. I would like to point out however that there is a danger to putting things on a "continuum" when in actuality there is more than one dimension for differences. This is true for example of politics, where we can't really say a party is such and such amount to the left or to the right, when it is more complicated than that. The same is true of criminal justice systems. If you imagine all possible criminal justice systems out there (for those who like to think of things geometrically, think of an N-dimensional space, where N is a large number), took one point as purely restorative, one as purely restributive (of course you would have to select a particular variety of retributionism) and drew a straight line between the two, I don't believe any legal system in existance today would lie anywhere near that line. Moving toward restorative justice is not the same thing as moving away from retributive justice. Moving away from the current legal system is not the same as moving away from retributive justice. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 00:29, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] POV considerations in the current state of the article

I think the article current is much closer to NPOV. Although it does make mention of retributive justice as an opposing theory in a couple of contexts, it no longer present the two theories as opposing in the large.

Something worth mentioning, because of the problem I pointed out with terminology, would be that many restorative justice supporters use the term "retributive justice" somewhat incorrectly to identify the current state of the legal system. Perhaps a section explaining when the two theories could compliment each other and when they are in opposition would be informative and help correct the effect the misuse of terminology might have. The section on cases where restorative justice is inappropriate is a good start.

Finally, I agree that it is useful to point out difference between restorative justice and other theories, but I don't see why retributive justice should be singled out, even if that is the one that is focused on by restorative justice supporters. A comparison to reform, incapacitation, social education, and deterrence would be fair. Unfortunately, I am probably not knowledgeable enough about restorative justice to make those comparisons myself. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 11:14, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)