Tejaswini Ramakrishna, KLE Society's Law College, Bengaluru
ABSTRACT
Restorative justice has advanced significantly since the early 1960s, and it now plays an important role in and alongside the criminal justice systems of a number of countries around the world. Though the idea that ‘restorative justice' can be used to combat crime has piqued the interest of criminologists and policymakers worldwide, it has been difficult to obtain a factual picture of the effectiveness of this doctrine due to failures and not being assessed sufficiently systematically and comprehensively. Unlike retributive and rehabilitative justice, restorative justice focuses on preventing the offender from repeating their actions. In fact, restoration can take place without the involvement of the offender.
Even if the perpetrator is not apprehended, partial justice is served by attempting to restore or compensate the victim in order to restore the public's trust that justice will be served. 'Restorative justice has been defined as 'every action primarily oriented toward doing justice by restoring the harm caused by a crime1. Thus, the doctrine played an important role because it offers a new practical strategy for combating injustice and stigma based on moral intuitions with enormous resonance.
The purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical exploration of Restorative Justice and the goals, guiding principles that should govern it, its appropriate scope of application, its social and legal context, its practice and impact in the present context, and its relationship to traditional criminal justice conceptualizations.
Keywords: Restorative justice, victim, crime, morality, stigmatization.
