Pitfalls Of Restorative Justice

The conventional way of punishing and processing offenders within the justice system has come under scrutiny for its many failings in repairing damage caused to the victims involved in a offence. The main limitation that has come under scrutiny is the role the victim plays within court proceedings, this is a major issue because the justice system fails to quell the harm of victims or provide the healing necessary for closure. Andrew Ashworth (2009) states that the changes within society has taken the power from the victim to bolster their own and in doing so has interrupted the ways of the natural world (Newburn, 2009 p.728). Furthermore due to the legal proceedings being adversarial in nature in most western societies the victims has less powers in addressing the offender or the court. …show more content…
According to Zvi Gabbay (2005) the arguments by the defence team may in some cases of victim crimes can cause further harm to the individual because they aim to find doubt in the the victims statements through cross examinations. For example, the defence team tends to find ways to place some blame on a victim or find doubt in their recollection of the incident (Gabbay, 2005 p.352). These issues demonstrate why victim advocates, criminologist and world governments believe Restorative Justice practices may be a better alternative to the conventional system because it puts the victims recovery and reconciliation in the centre of its proceedings, which should give them more power to decide on the of the offender to a