Posted: 25 Oct 2018 11:18 AM PDT
Restorative Justice helps offender to put "face" to the crime, the human being behind the criminal action and thus to see that his/her crime, effectively has caused harm to another person, we can say that helps to humanize his actions, no longer It will about him in front of the state and a rule that has be written in somewhere, something they calle "code". He or she will have to face his or her actions because they caused pain and injury to other people, other members of the community. As Zehr said, the crime is seen with another lens and therefore, the impact it has actually had, is seen more closely, as if we had a magnifying glass. But Restorative Justice also favors the humanization of crime in the eyes of the victim. In many cases victims tend to think about the offender as a demon, a monster that has nothing to do with the people around them.This is undoubtedly a mechanism that can serve them at first, to mitigate the feeling of mistrust that comes after suffering the crime, because the theoretically ideal world in which they lived has collapsed, after becoming victims and thinking in offenders as monsters relieves this feeling at least a priori, since in this way, the crime will be considered as something totally unusual.
But even if the offender is seen in this way, something is broken inside the victim, she or he loses his/her trust in the other members of the group, his/her relationship with the community breaks down (because of that, for restorative processes, crime is a violation of people and how they relate). Something more is needed so as victims can really feel that justice has acted and that they can re-relate and feel members of the group again, respected and heard and all of these are favored through this Justice. Why?
Restorative processes help to heal this open wound, because if the offender is responsible and voluntarily wants to participate, the victim can put face and story to the "monster" that hurt her/him, she/he will see that it is a human being and that it is possible he/she can change, this will undoubtedly help her /him to make the feeling of insecurity lessened, the offender is not a terrible being to fear but a person like her/him, who commits herself through Restorative Justice to compensate for the damage that he/she has caused her/him and he/she also accepts not to commit a crime again.
Undoubtedly, restorative justice gives more hope to the victims that a better world is possible, even in spite of the crime they suffered, they will know that not all offenders are monsters and that if we give them a opportunity to change and to make things right they will take advantage of it. It is a question of offering an open door to the future, for the offender: who will have the opportunity to be seen for the good things he will does from that moment on, without being tagged, and for the victim: who can recompose his/her life, incorporating the crime suffered with honor, and of course, stripping himself of the victim's label. Recognizing the humanity that underlies the offender regenerates the trust in society, in his/her relatives and ultimately helps the victims to reintegrate back into the community.
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