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Empowerment and Retribution in Criminal and Restorative Justice

Barton, Charles
June 4, 2015

Source: (2001) Victim Offender Mediation Association. 15/October 2002.http://www.voma.org/docs/barton_emp&re.pdf

Contrary to the implied suggestion in many restorative justice critiques of the status quo, the
chief strength of restorative justice interventions does not lie in their rejection of
punitiveness and retribution, but the empowerment of communities of care who are the most
likely to respond effectively to both the causes and the consequences of criminal
wrongdoing. Thus, it is the empowerment of affected stakeholders on both sides that is the
crucial feature of restorative justice, and the feature whose absence causes both conventional
and restorative justice to fail.

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