Restorative Processes & Doing Justice

Source: (2007) U of Penn Law School, Public Law Working Paper No. 07-07 . University of St. Thomas Law Journal.3(3):421-429.

This essay argues that, while many restorative processes are quite valuable, there is the potential for their use to produce results that conflict with the community’s shared intuitions of justice and to thereby undermine the criminal law’s moral credibility. Because such moral credibility can have practical crime-control value, it ought not be undermined unless the crime-control benefits of doing so clearly outweigh the costs. In practice, it is entirely possible to rely upon restorative processes in ways that avoid injustice and that assure justice is done. (author’s abstract)