Offenders to face victims

[andrewducker]

This is a fantastic idea (in certain circumstances). It should help both victims and perpetrators to move on.

People who commit crimes could avoid prosecution if they agree to face-to-face meetings with their victims and see the impact of their offences, it has been suggested.

Both victims and offenders would have to consent to taking part in the scheme with the perpetrator admitting to the offence.

Restorative justice has so far been confined largely to young offenders but will be stepped up to include more adult offenders, school bullies and anti-social hooligans.

Mr Blunkett said: "Restorative justice means victims can get an apology from their offender, but it is about more than 'saying sorry' - it provides the victim with an explanation of why the crime was committed.

"This is something a prison sentence on its own can never do and can enable victims to move on and carry on with their lives.

"It also means that for the first time offenders will be personally held to account for the crimes they have committed."

Comments

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

I would actually quite have liked to know that Jeffrey Archer had to face up to Monica Coghlan and apologise to her.

If the point is to prevent someone from committing a crime again, bringing the victim and the criminal face-to-face can have remarkably good effects.

But it depends what you see the point of a criminal conviction as being. If it's to punish, you'll go in one direction. If it's to prevent the criminal from recividism, you'll go in another. I've been burgled and had an (attempted) mugging: I would rather prevention than punishment.

[andrewducker]

I'd rather have whatever works.

Imprisonment has a high recidivism rate, other techniques have lower ones.

Imprisonment seems to work well when it's used to prevent the person committing more crimes while they're "cured".

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but works how?

I think from what you're saying you see conviction as an opportunity to "cure" (which isn't a word I particularly like), rather than as an opportunity to punish. And I agree with this - having been burgled, and (nearly) mugged, I'd a lot rather prevention than punishment, which seems futile.

But for a lot of people, they see conviction as an opportunity to punish, and rehabilition as a secondary purpose. Those who are not interested in rehabilitation will not see any value in this opportunity.

[andrewducker]

Works in that it lowers crime and makes a happier populace.

I don't like the idea of hurting people, but I'd be willing to see it done if it was an effective measure of reducing crime and making civilisations more, well, civilised.

I'm rather glad it isn't.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

I don't like the idea of hurting people, but I'd be willing to see it done if it was an effective measure of reducing crime and making civilisations more, well, civilised.

It would certainly raise some interesting moral questions about why we try to reduce crime at all, if not that it's wrong to hurt people.... of course, it already did, decades ago.

[andrewducker]

Yup. Lots of questions, with whole ranges of interesting answers.

I never, of course, made any claim about the rightness or wrongness of hurting people.

I did say what I did and didn't like.

Oh, except for the line "Keeping dangerous people off the streets is definitely a good thing." which is fairly inarguable. I could rephrase it in the form of a preference if you prefer.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

It would certainly raise some interesting moral questions about why we try to reduce crime at all, if not that it's wrong to hurt people

Well, as does inprisonment, actually: it's wrong to imprison people, for the most part. We do something to one group of people which is wrong when done to most people. We (as a society, I think) accept that removing the right to freedom of movement is OK, but we don't all agree that removing the right to live free from pain and torture is OK, no matter what the person's done.

I'm just sayin'...

[heron61.livejournal.com]

The question is works to what end? The question of what the justice system is attempting to achieve should come first and if handled in a reasonable fashion a variety of options would then be tested and the most effective used. The current system claims to be about reform, but (in the US at east, I know nothing of such things in other nations) it is solely about punishment and vengeance. I think the US system actually manages this fairly well. However, it is exceptionally poor at preventing people from committing additional crimes.