The Importance Of Restorative Justice

“When people collectively come together and strategize and plan, working together and acting together, they create a power that they can effectively use in their situation to effect change.” (Rev. Dr. James Lawson, Jr.) This quote draws upon the essence of Restorative justice as it involves community building, reconciliation, and peace making. Restorative justice can be best described as an effective and unique way to address problems between both the victim and the offender. Restorative justice is a problem solving approach that brings the community, the victim, and the offender closer together and allows healing for those affected by the crime to move on with their lives. It has several aims such as holding the offender accountable for what

According to the 2004 general society survey (GSS) aboriginal people are three times more likely than non aboriginal people to experience a violent victimization. Due to the limited comprehensive data surrounding these issues, restorative justice plays a role as the proper response and healing key preventing us from overlooking further aboriginal issues. Aboriginals have different attitudes towards the criminal justice system in comparison to non aboriginal peoples. Aboriginal people are more likely to have contact with the police for serious manners, whereas others may simply make calls for small issues. Furthermore, they have lower levels of satisfaction with the system as theres not much focus on aboriginal cases. It is unfortunate that there is an over representation within our criminal justice system. Indigenous people are highly over represented as offenders in homicide incidents. Economic and societal factors play a role in the over representation of indigenous peoples. Factors such as low education, unemployment, low income, and single parent families all contribute. A major factor however that is believed to be the strongest risk factor for offering and victimization is age. Young offenders view professionals with higher levels as authority as careless people within the criminal justice system. This also contributes to factors such as cultural

Although both have differences, restorative justice is a much more practical approach to crime in contrast to traditional justice. The traditional justice system views crime as an act committed against the state, and an offence of the law. Whereas the restorative justice approach views crime as an act not only against the victim but the community as well. It is important to realize that each approach controls crime differently. Restorative justice believes that crime control lies mainly within the community, while traditional justice demonstrates that the criminal justice system is in control. With respect to the community, traditional justice believes that crime should solely involve the state, and that crime is an individual act. Contrasting restorative justice which believes that the community should be involved and crime is not an individual act as there are societal factors that contribute. Restorative justice focuses on the offender taking responsibility, and to repair harm, whereas traditional justice is simply defined as taking punishment and not focusing on the victim. As victims in a traditional manner are not essential to the process, however when looking at it from a restorative point of view the victims are the central focus of the process to resolving crime. When focusing on crime, is it important to not only acknowledge the past but