NCJ Number
74115
Date Published
1980
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This essay analyzes the extent to which reparation (broadly defined to include payment of money to victims, return of goods, and provision of service or labor) finds justifying aims in the rehabilitative, deterrent, or retributive penal philosophies.
Abstract
Reparative sanctions are not ordinary additions to versatile multiple-aim sanctions. They reconcile two hitherto considered irreconcilable sentencing aims, i.e., scientific (and humanitarian) treatment and retributive justice. This study examines the treatment and retribution aspects of reparation in an attempt to determine which of the aims reparation most logically, effectively, and efficiently serves, which of them can claim to be not merely a desirable side effect but its predominant justifying aim. The traditional sentencing aims (e.g., deterrence, rehabilitation, retribution) are examined in connection with reparation, viewed as a new element in the penal system. Reparation should, therefore, be defined as the reparative aim and clearly distinguished from the other aims. Reparation cannot be justified simply because of the benefit it brings to the victim because it would become a form of civil compensation and no longer related to the aims of the criminal justice system. As a deterrent and punishment, reparation would be inefficient. The reformative aim of reparation, reparation as deprivation of the proceeds of crime, and reparation as doing justice, as well as some implications for theory, research, and practice, are discussed, along with reparation in the form of community service orders and the problems of establishing a tariff for this type of sentence. Twenty-two endnotes are appended.