'Restoring Communities and Young Offenders A Critical Evaluation of Restorative Justice' - Essay Example

Unfortunately, over the last 10 years the number of crimes committed by young people has much increased and there is an urgent need to review and reform the existing restorative practices in order to prevent further crime growth. The concluding section outlines the key points of restorative justice reform. Restorative justice has started to evolve based on the need for healing relationship as opposed to the criminal justice under which the hurt is balanced to hurt (Braithwaite, 157). The aim of the restorative justice is to create the process when all of the parties have the opportunity to be heard with respect to their views of the crime and development of the program to restore victims, offenders and the communities.

According to Andrew Ashworth, restorative justice is the process when victims and offenders collectively decide on how to deal with the consequences of the crime and its impact on the future (164). Restorative justice has the aim of fully attending the needs of the victims, not only material and financial, but as well as emotional and social and preventing the possibility of potential re-offending through the integration of young offenders into the community again. Through restorative justice offenders learn how to assume the responsibility for their actions and become the part of the working community.

Therefore, victims and offenders are the two major parties of attention. The society tends to reject criminals and it is completely understood – nobody wants to risk and guess whether he/she can become the next victim. For this reason people do not want to associate with those who have problems with the law. Victims are not always willing to share their emotions because of fear to be misunderstood and rejected by the society. Both parties feel being idle in society and restorative justice helps both offenders and victims to become active community members