Source: (2004) Wellington, New Zealand: New Zealand Ministry of Justice Strategic Assessment Group. Downloaded 27 July 2004.
The goal of this document is to guide practitioners and participants in the restorative justice process. A definition of restorative justice is presented that discusses this criminal justice process as an alternative way of thinking about crime, offenders, and victims. Restorative justice practices began in New Zealand in 1989 with the introduction Family Group Conferences for youthful offenders. Three different pieces of legislation in 2002 established statutory recognition of restorative justice processes within the formal criminal justice system. The next section presents the paper, “Principles of Best Practice for Restorative Justice Processes in Criminal Cases,â€? which offers guidance for the use of restorative justice processes within the criminal justice system. Eight main points establish, among other things, that the restorative justice process is anchored on volunteerism, the process must hold the offender accountable, and the process should only be undertaken in appropriate cases. The second paper, “Statement of Restorative Justice Values and Processes,â€? focuses on the statement of the values inherent in the restorative process. This approach allows flexibility of practice while serving to retain the core beliefs of the restorative process. The paper enumerates the core restorative justice values and the core values that should be found in the restorative justice community. Abstract courtesy of National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org.
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