Restoration Justice

The criminal justice system is difficult to understand, but useful in many situations.

The criminal justice system in the United States is something that most people never think much about until they or someone they love has a run-in with the law. At that point it becomes a massive system that is difficult to understand and maneuver, especially for those sitting behind bars trying to make sense of it all.

The criminal justice system is designed with three levels of law:

• Local
• State
• Federal

At the local level you typically have police departments which are responsible for tracking down offenders who break the law and arresting them. Where an offender goes from there depends on the type of crime they are charged with and the sentence they ultimately receive after going through trial with a jury or judge.

Those who are acquitted are turned free while those who are sentenced to jail time are moved from the local jail into a state-operated prison. For the most part crimes are charged according to state laws, but those who commit more serious crimes that are charged at the Federal level are moved into the Federal system.

Why Study the Criminal Justice System?

The moment you are incarcerated or your child becomes incarcerated is ideally not the time to start learning about the criminal justice system. Everyone needs to understand the basic structure of our system so they can adequately look after their own rights or help loved ones who may at some point become involved in the criminal justice system.

This is especially true for parents, who are often left feeling helpless and confused when their child ends up incarcerated within the juvenile justice system. Having some understanding of how it all works ahead of time really helps.

Changing How We See Crime

In the past, the criminal justice system has focused heavily on punishing crimes as harshly as possible. There was emphasis on making an example of some criminals to send a message to future criminals. Today, this attitude is starting to change as our jails and prisons overflow with inmates and the rate of juvenile crime continues to rise.

There is now more focus on finding punishments which actually help the offender come to terms with underlying issues while allowing victims and the community to become involved in the justice system. This is considered “restorative justice.”

Restorative justice does not rule out jail sentences and other standard forms of punishments within our correctional systems, but it does look at crime and the criminal offender in a very different light. Rather than just seeking swift and harsh punishment, those who advocate restorative justice are looking to help the offenders get to the root of their offending behaviors while providing more healing and interaction with victims.

Some examples of restorative justice programs include:

• Restitution
• Offender-Victim Mediation Sessions
• Therapy/Treatment for Mental Illness
• Drug Rehabilitation

There are also many restorative justice programs now being implemented which work in high schools to help kids who are showing signs of dropping out or having disciplinary problems straighten out before they become the next incarcerated juvenile offenders.

Juvenile Corrections

Though most people working within the juvenile corrections system today recognize the need for more restorative justice programs that will help juveniles when they first enter the system, there are some serious problems arising now. Many of these problems are due to the lack of financial support in place for the criminal justice system in general.

Juvenile corrections tend to make use of more restorative justice programs than the adult criminal justice system, but there simply is not enough funding to get all of the programs that are needed up and running in every state. For this reason, different states now have different programs in place but probation officers and court officials everywhere are overwhelmed and frustrated at the lack of resources available to them.

There is a reason that kids who do not graduate high school are at least twice as likely as graduates to end up within the criminal justice system later on in life! There is a reason that so many of our offenders are repeat offenders entering the criminal justice system over and over throughout their lifetime.

There also have to be answers to those problems. Restorative justice needs to be embraced as a means of finding those answers!