Balanced and Restorative Justice: Prospects for Juvenile Justice in the 21st Century (From Juvenile Justice Sourcebook: Past, Present, and Future, P 467-509, 2004, Albert R. Roberts, ed. -- See NCJ-206597)

• NCJ Number: 206615
• Author(s): Gordon Bazemore; Mark Umbreit
• Date Published: 2004
• Length: 43 pages
• Sale Source: Oxford University Press, Inc
• Publication Format: Book (Hardbound)
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter proposes a model for reducing juvenile crime that is based on the new philosophical framework of restorative justice and a new mission for juvenile justice that involves a balanced approach.

Abstract

The proposed model is based in the perspective that mutual responsibility between the individual and society is the essence of community. Crime, particularly juvenile crime, involves a failure to fulfill this responsibility, usually involving failure by both society and the youth. An effective model for reducing juvenile crime would therefore be one that emphasizes and facilitates mutual responsibility as the central component for interrupting cycles of isolation and conflict among community members while making both juveniles and the community accountable for the failures that contributed to the crime at issue. The proposed balanced approach for reducing juvenile crime involves the promotion of community protection, accountability, and competency development, and it requires participation by victims, offending juveniles, and representatives of the community. "Accountability" means that when an offense occurs, an obligation to victims and the community incurs. "Competency development" means that offenders who enter the juvenile justice system should leave it more capable of responsible behavior; and "community protection" means that juvenile justice is responsible for protecting the public from offenders under supervision. Restorative justice offers an alternative to the increasingly retributive focus of the juvenile court, and it moves beyond the limits of individual treatment based on the medical model. Neither punitive nor lenient in its objectives, restorative justice's primary objective is the reparation of the harm done to victims by the offender's behavior; recognition by the offender of the harm caused by the offense; conciliation; and, if appropriate, reconciliation among victim, offender, and the community. Grounded in these restorative assumptions and values, the balanced mission provides a strategy for meeting the traditional needs for sanctioning, rehabilitation, and increased public safety while achieving the overarching goal of healing the victim of the harm done by the offense. This chapter contrasts individual treatment, retribution, and the model of balanced and restorative justice and then outlines a strategy for moving toward the implementation of this new model. 7 tables, discussion questions, 9 notes, 102 references, and appended programmatic examples, a restorative justice checklist, and implications for systematic change