THE IDG VIEW OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICE

All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.
             -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Restorative Justice is an approach to dealing with crime and the impact of the harm on the victim, community, and offender, with the aim of restoring those who have been injured. Restorative Justice works to hold offenders accountable to their crimes and approaches justice through looking at the needs of the victim, offender, and the community. Restorative Justice sees crime as a violation of the web of relationships between victims, offender, and their communities. From a restorative justice based perspective, violations create obligations, and a responsibility to make right the wrong that was committed.  

Definitions of Restorative Justice

• An approach to justice that focuses on the needs of victims and offenders instead of satisfying abstract legal principles or punishing the offender.
• Those that have been affected by an offense.
• Those that have a stake in a specific offense.
• Emphasizes repairing the harm caused or revealed by criminal behavior.
• Transforming the traditional relationship between communities and their governments in responding to crime.
• Address harms needs and obligations
• Web of relationships
• Make justice more healing and transformative.
• An approach to justice that actively involves all who are impacted by crime.
• Seeks to promote accountability healing and the common good.
• An approach to justice that focuses on the needs of victims and offenders instead of satisfying abstract legal principles or punishing the offender

So where is IDG on the restorative justice spectrum?

The Insight Development Group is only partially restorative in the sense we do not offer direct encounters, nor are we involved at multiple levels of the justice process. Contrary to the R.J. image above, no single process can be fully restorative unto itself. IDG believes that restorative justice should be viewed through a more holistic lens. A whole systems approach reflects the interconnectivity and web of relationships involved in making large social, institutional reforms. We are a restorative capacity building program which seeks to help offenders develop readiness for direct encounters, promote prison culture change, as-well-as to offer a new paradigm for living.   Although it is helpful to identify the various processes that contribute to restorative justice, we at IDG prefer to leave the traditional culture of compartmentalization behind and contribute what, and where we can, knowing our work makes a difference.