This page was translated automatically by eTranslation, the European Commission's machine translation service, without human review. In case of doubt, the original Portuguese version prevails. View the Portuguese original
Restorative justice
A new paradigm focused on remediation and the active participation of victims, offenders and communities.
What is it?
Restorative Justice is a relatively recent trend in the areas of victimology and criminology. Born in the mid-1970s, it is associated with the proclamation of the failure of so-called retributive justice, unable to provide adequate answers to crime and to the specific problems of victims and offenders.
Restorative justice is a new standard of thought, which sees crime not merely as a violation of the law, but as causing harm to victims, the community, and even offenders. It focuses on the active participation of victims, offenders and, in some cases, the community, through a process of communication between them, stimulated and managed by an impartial third party – the mediator or facilitator – and sometimes embodied in the holding of one or more meetings, in an effort to identify the injustice committed, the resulting damage, the necessary steps for its reparation and future actions that may reduce the possibility of new crimes occurring.
- Marshall definition (1999)
"It is a process by which the parties involved in a crime decide together how to deal with the effects of the crime and its future consequences."
- UN Fundamental Principles
"It is a process in which the victim, the offender and/or other individuals or members of the community affected by a crime participate actively and jointly in the resolution of the issues arising from that crime, with the help of an impartial third party."
Merits and Benefits
- Victim, Offender and Community
Human and Social Interaction
Ideally, the main merits of restorative justice are, by promoting the active participation of victims, offenders and communities, to enable:
- Victims: Express directly to the offender the feelings experienced, the physical, psychological and/or material consequences arising from the crime and the needs to be met in order to overcome the effects of the crime.
- Infringers: Understand in concrete terms the impact that their action had on the victim, assuming responsibility for the act perpetrated and repairing in some way, totally or at least partially, the harm caused.
- Communities: Bringing citizens closer to the achievement of justice by enabling them to participate in the resolution of conflicts within them, promoting the recovery of ‘social peace’.
- Criminal Justice System
Administration of Justice
From the point of view of the possible benefits for the criminal justice system and administration of justice, restorative justice can contribute to:
- Individualization of responses: Legal-criminal reactions to the characteristics of each case.
- Citizen outreach:Promote citizens' understanding of the justice system and generate an improved image and perception of justice.
- Flexibility and speed: Facilitate quick, flexible and participatory dispute resolution.
- Resource efficiency:Reduce processes in the traditional system (focusing efforts on more demanding areas) and decrease costs with the judicial machine and incarceration.
Operationalisation
The operationalization of restorative justice has been done in an extremely varied way, at several levels: It emerged mainly in the area of justice for children and young people, as a way to deal more constructively and responsibly with youth crime, and was soon also used in adult criminal justice.
Initially tried in the context of small and medium-sized crime, and still today this is its most usual context, it has nevertheless been used in situations of more serious crime – homicides or sexual violence, for example.
As regards the interaction with the criminal process, we find examples of restorative justice mechanisms as an integral part of the process (usually during the investigation phase and as a form of amusement, where the conclusion and approval of a possible agreement between the actors may lead to the termination of the criminal procedure), as a complement (either in the post-charge phase but pre-trial in the face of serious crimes, where a possible agreement may have some impact on the measure of the sentence, or in the phase of execution of sentences in a prison context with or without consequences on the execution of the sentence) or in parallel, that is, without any connection with the process and focused exclusively on the process of communication between victim and offender.
Models of Practice
Restorative justice has been carried out in different regions of the world through various models that differ reasonably from each other in cultural origins, in the criminal justice systems in place and in the connection they establish with them:
Victim-Infringer Mediation
Predominant in Europe, it is based on a neutral and direct dialogue only between the victim and the offender.
Conference
With great expression in countries such as Australia and New Zealand (and also USA/Canada). It is distinguished by including a broader set of participants, namely persons supporting the victim and the offender (family, friends, neighbours, coaches, etc.).
Evaluation and Positive Results
Many of these practices have been intensively evaluated (not least because some of these mechanisms have resulted from experimental projects developed in academia) and the results are generally quite positive:
- Satisfaction with the procedure: High satisfaction of stakeholders with the fairness of the procedure, with the quality of the mediation and with the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process.
- Benefits for victims:More likely to get answers to their questions, to receive apologies from the offender, to feel less fearful about the possibility of re-victimisation and less angry with the offender, reducing anxiety levels and recovering feelings of self-confidence and trust in others, as well as receiving compensation.
- Impact on offenders: Indicators are found, although not yet fully certain and varying according to the type of crime, that restorative justice can have a positive effect on reducing recidivism.
Learn more about Victim-Infringer Mediation