Aims of RJ

Restorative Justice pursues several goals, such as:

• Consider at all stages the need of the three key stakeholders
• Provide the direct stakeholders with an opportunity for active involvement in the Criminal Justice Process, allow them to do their own part to achieve a healing form of justice
• Restore broken relationships and repair the harm done through a dialogue that promotes healing, restoration, and restitution
• Hold offenders accountable for their responsibility, create victim-awareness, and reduce recidivism, support them in offering direct restitution to the victim
• Embody and reflect the values that are important to a particular community throughout the interventions
• Offer offenders opportunities for reintegration into the community, strengthening their relational network
• Strengthen public safety through community building

Such needs may be, for example, to receive information, substantial support, have opportunities for honest conversations, possibilities to be accountable and accept personal responsibility. Additionally, RJ seeks to empower victims, offenders, and the community.

Restoring broken relationships and repair the harm done is at the heart of RJ. This involves on one hand, for offenders to accept responsibility for their actions and make amends, and, on the other hand, for the community to assess situations that may favor the emergence of such situations and find ways to become proactive in preventing such harm from occurring. This often leads into analyzing issues of social justice within the local context.

Finally, a third goal of a RJ intervention is to embody and reflect the communities’ chosen and embraced core values. The values discussed under the value section have been found to be universally, no matter what the cultural, ethnical, or religious background of the participants.