What is restorative justice, concretely?
We look on crime as a breaking of human relationships. All crimes involve offender and victim, and offender and society. Crime is not just violating laws, but breaking bonds. One is then forced to seek a way to heal relationships broken by the offender. The present system does not address this healing, but only makes the offender serve a sentence, separated from society for his crime. The offender repays the victim by serving time in prison. If ever there is a payment of fines, it goes to the government, not the victim. In restorative justice, there is need for the offender to pay back the victim for the broken relationships he has caused. He does this by repairing the damage and making some sort of restitution to the victim. There must be some form of accountability, such as jail time, but also concrete expression of remorse. Remorse and healing are not at all included in the punitive system. In fact, good lawyers make sure their clients do not own up to any offense against the victim
