Repairing the Rupture: Restorative Justice and the Rehabilitation of Offenders.

Source: (2009) Aggression And Violent Behavior. 14(3):205-214.

Restorative justice is a social justice movement that aims to deal with consequences of crime through repairing and restoring relationships of three key stakeholders: victims, offenders, and communities. An analysis of the relationship between restorative justice theory and offender rehabilitation principles revealed tensions between the Risk-Need Responsivity Model (RNR) and the Good lives Model (GLM), the two normative frameworks. Findings exposed a lack of appreciation that correctional treatment programs have a legitimate role alongside restorative practices. Restorative justice and rehabilitation models are distinct, although overlapping, normative frameworks and have different domains of application in the criminal justice system; it is a mistake to attempt to blend them in any robust sense. The major difference is that the core values underpinning restorative justice practices are ethical in nature while rehabilitation approaches are fundamentally based on prudential values. The key concept to restoration is of restoring relationships between the stakeholders affected by crime and restoration of offenders’ functioning within the community by way of capabilities acquisition. (Abstract courtesy of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.gov).