Restorative Justice Is Not Punitive Justice
Almost all of us grew up with criminal justice, which focuses on judgmentalness and punishment for those who did harm. Criminal justice focuses on those who have harmed others, doing little to support what healing might come for victims or survivors who were harmed.
But criminal justice – also called punitive justice or retributive justice -- does little to answer the most common questions that survivors or victims have: Why? Why this? Why me (or us)?
Criminal justice also makes little or no effort to promote healing in the communities of people who have been harmed by the “ripple effects” of someone’s harm. It seeks instead to identify, assess, and establish punishments for offenders, rather than emphasizing help and healing for survivors and victims.
Finally, the punishments of criminal justice sentences, which usually involve jail and prison, have an enormous dollars-and-cents cost to communities and taxpayers, and they take an uncalculated emotional and spiritual toll on families, friendships, and neighborhoods.
Relationship – Respect – Responsibility – Repair – Reintegration
We represent these restorative justice values in a circle because the process of restoration, of healing within individuals and among people and communities, is constantly happening in and among the “five Rs.”
Restorative justice encourages us to see ourselves as connected to one another as human beings and as parts of larger communities such as families, neighborhoods, and cultures. It promotes actions that help us to be part of a web of these relationships, even as we recognize and honor how unique each of us can be.
