NCJ Number
224919
Journal
Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 13 Issue: 5 Dated: October 2008 Pages: 355-372
Date Published
October 2008
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This paper examines the relationship between two valuable resources for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners in the criminal justice system arena: restorative justice and human rights.
Abstract
Restorative justice is a grassroots movement that has a major aim in the healing of victims and their communities following crimes, through the active involvement of key stakeholders. The aim is to restore and/or establish healthy relationships between individuals and to promise just outcomes through following an agreed upon set of procedures. The analysis reveals that restorative justice initiatives properly conceived and implemented have the potential to protect offenders’ rights to personal freedom, subsistence, security, and social recognition but appear to frequently violate offenders’ rights to elemental equality which is critical to protecting individuals from discrimination. To minimize the degree of conflict and to ensure that both human rights and restorative justice ideas are integrated into the justice system, there should be no dismissing or downplaying the worth of the other. The emphasis on community good and establishing or repairing relationships evident in restorative justice indicates it is more directly concerned with rights of citizens than the human rights of individuals. This is a matter of emphasis and does not amount to a dismissal of the importance of human rights by restorative justice advocates. Human rights function as an ethical anchor that is able to justify many restorative justice practices and permit others that do not violate core rights values. Offenders ought to be held accountable but they also should have the chance to turn their lives around. A cornerstone of this process is the recognition and protection of their human rights by the community and its criminal justice agencies. This paper discusses how the assumptions underpinning restorative justice practices impact on offenders’ human rights, and their points of convergence and divergence. Figure and references