Howard Zehr (2002), prominent advocate for restorative justice in his book noted 'the primary goal of restorative justice is not to curb recidivism, but to put things right. ' But, how will any Criminal Justice System know when things are right and for whom? It is therefore empirical that the approach be measured by the standard mode all programmes globally are held against, and, in doing so the most relevant measure is the recidivism rate of any crime (Latimer, 2005). For that reason, I recommend restorative justice should be evaluated on its ability to reduce recidivism for consistent evaluations, standardized scales of emotional traits and for theoretical explanations of all categories of crime. Restorative Justice is a philosophy which
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They fail to address factors that influence criminal behaviour such as antisocial peers, substance abuse, and criminogenic or at-risk communities which pre-dispose persons to a life of crime, (Gabbay, 2005). Far too much emphasis is placed on the offender in relation to community resources instead of his / her immediate situation before and after the act was committed. Programmes having accomplished their set out goals in a specific demographic give the impression of a achievement rate whereby the offender has a complete change in their immediate behaviour, however research on the prolonged success is not forthcoming in all instances restorative justice is used as an alternative form of sanction. It is for this reason the results of minority groups to which restorative justice programmes has been successful is not the most reliable measure. However, if patterns using the same minority groups are reflected by the recidivism rate explanations such as crime and social control theory where emphasis is placed on unemployment, drug dependency, social and relationships lifestyles may be better at explaining and offenders actions and his/her tendency towards acceptable social norms, (Presser, Hamilton, …show more content…
Additionally, to generalize any programme one has to be able to measure its success rate across time and setting. The recidivism rate of any programme is its best measure of success since offers stability in evaluations, the factors of all variables can be standardized and theoretical framework can be tested and exemplified for categories of crime regardless of
They fail to address factors that influence criminal behaviour such as antisocial peers, substance abuse, and criminogenic or at-risk communities which pre-dispose persons to a life of crime, (Gabbay, 2005). Far too much emphasis is placed on the offender in relation to community resources instead of his / her immediate situation before and after the act was committed. Programmes having accomplished their set out goals in a specific demographic give the impression of a achievement rate whereby the offender has a complete change in their immediate behaviour, however research on the prolonged success is not forthcoming in all instances restorative justice is used as an alternative form of sanction. It is for this reason the results of minority groups to which restorative justice programmes has been successful is not the most reliable measure. However, if patterns using the same minority groups are reflected by the recidivism rate explanations such as crime and social control theory where emphasis is placed on unemployment, drug dependency, social and relationships lifestyles may be better at explaining and offenders actions and his/her tendency towards acceptable social norms, (Presser, Hamilton, …show more content…
Additionally, to generalize any programme one has to be able to measure its success rate across time and setting. The recidivism rate of any programme is its best measure of success since offers stability in evaluations, the factors of all variables can be standardized and theoretical framework can be tested and exemplified for categories of crime regardless of