Fundamental Concepts of Restorative Justice
1.0 Crime is Fundamentally a Violation of People and Interpersonal Relationships. [1]
1.1.2 The relationships affected (and reflected) by crime must be addressed.
1.2.2 The roles of these parties will vary according to the nature of the offense as well as the capacities and preferences of the parties.
1.2.3 The state has circumscribed roles, such as investigating facts, facilitating processes and ensuring safety, but the state is not a primary victim.
2.0 Violations Create Obligations and Liabilities.
2.1.2 Offenders are provided opportunities and encouragement to understand the harm they have caused to victims and the community and to develop plans for taking appropriate responsibility.
2.1.3 Voluntary participation by offenders is maximized; coercion and exclusion are minimized. However, offenders may be required to accept their obligations if they do not do so voluntarily.
2.1.4 Obligations that follow from the harm inflicted by crime should be related to making things right.
2.1.5 Obligations may be experienced as difficult, even painful, but are not intended as pain, vengeance or revenge.
2.1.6 Obligations to victims such as restitution take priority over other sanctions and obligations to the state such as fines.
2.1.7 Offenders have an obligation to be active participants in addressing their own needs.
2.2.2 The community bears a responsibility for the welfare of its members and the social conditions and relationships which promote both crime and community peace.
2.2.3 The community has responsibilities to support efforts to integrate offenders into the community, to be actively involved in the definitions of offender obligations and to ensure opportunities for offenders to make amends.
3.0 Restorative Justice Seeks to Heal and Put Right the Wrongs.
3.1.2 The justice process provides a framework that promotes the work of recovery and healing that is ultimately the domain of the individual victim.
3.1.3 Victims are empowered by maximizing their input and participation in determining needs and outcomes.
3.1.4 Offenders are involved in repair of the harm insofar as possible.
3.2.2 Victims have the principal role in defining, and directing the terms and conditions of the exchange.
3.2.3 Mutual agreement takes precedence over imposed outcomes.
3.2.4 Opportunities are provided for remorse, forgiveness and reconciliation.
3.3.2 Offenders are supported and treated respectfully in the justice process.
3.3.3 Removal from the community and severe restriction of offenders is limited to the minimum necessary.
3.3.4 Justice values personal change above compliant behavior.
3.4.2 The justice process draws from community resources and, in turn, contributes to the building and strengthening of community.
3.4.3 The justice process attempts to promote changes in the community to prevent similar harms from happening to others.
3.5.2 Fairness is assured, not by uniformity of outcomes, but through provision of necessary support and opportunities to all parties and avoidance of discrimination based on ethnicity class and sex.
3.5.3 Outcomes which arc predominately deterrent or incapacitative should be implemented as a last resort, involving the least restrictive intervention while seeking restoration of the parties involved.
3.5.4 Unintended consequences such as the coaptation of restorative processes for coercive or punitive ends, undue offender orientation, or the expansion of social control are resisted.
Notes
[1]Used with permission form Howard Zehr, Eastern Mennonite University, and Harry Mika, Central Michigan University. Copyright 1997, Mennonite Central Committee. Back to text.