Reconsidering Legal Capacity And Critiques: A Discussion On Restorative Justice In Australia

Restorative Justice in Australia: Strengths and Critiques

Discuss about the Reconsidering Legal Capacity and Critiques.

Restorative justice is significant to create a mutual understanding between the criminal and victims. This essay presents the concept related to Restorative Justice in context of Australia. It also discusses the strength and critics of Restorative Justice in Australia.

Restorative justice is the philosophy of justice, which demonstrates the injury begun by illegal performance. It is a legislative and court allotted structure where the illegal justice system concentrates on integrating criminals. It is performed by making a settlement between criminal, victims and the community. Additionally, it can also be stated that the Restorative justice direct to alteration in the behaviour of individuals and groups (Bruce, 2013). As per the evaluation of Restorative justice system, it is addressed that criminal court is emphasized on the victim rather than criminal consequently court is enabled to reduce the level of crime due to less strict penalties. 

It is argued that the uses of Restorative justice are beneficial within the Australian country for criminal as well as community and victims. Restorative justice is significant for the community due to decline recidivism, enhance security, cost efficiency, and robust group. The Restorative justice is supportive to decline the recurrence crimes which are beneficial for community and victims. Moreover, it is examined that when Australian communities forgive to their offender for their illegal behaviour then the probability of occurring these activity would be declined (Camilleri, et al., 2013).   

Moreover, an individual who is criminal have the opportunity to perform appropriately by describing the whole process of incidents wherein experts are able to lead the criminal to make offense free life. At the same time, the low replication of illegal behaviour makes the harmless community, which would be effective for communities to stay stress free lives. The implementation of Restorative justice is encouraging the person to create safety within their areas consequently it makes more enjoyable places for living (Cashmore, 2013).

According to the Connolly (2013), the community justice should try to make efficient citizenship to improve the safety level for community as well as develop wellbeing areas for them. Therefore, volunteering is used to develop robust and organized communities together with enhancing the social connections within the communities.

Restorative justice is effective to empower the victims by providing facility to make open discussion with criminals. Additionally, criminal court provides the opportunity to victim for freely discussion and interaction with an individual who have injured to them. Moreover, victims participate in whole process due to getting the appropriate result of incident. Hence, the needs of victims are approved and measured by the justice team which provides them a vocal sound decision. As well as, they provide an effective structure for interacting with criminals (Daly, 2016).                     

Benefits of Restorative Justice for Community

It is also addressed that the Restorative justice supports to victims for getting higher satisfaction by providing them a sound decision. By using the Restorative justice, Australian victims are able to justify their incident issue together with identifying the whole process about their injury. At the same time, they would be enabled to know about why the criminal will get compensation for their illegal activity. Additionally, Restorative justice satisfies to large number of victims by solving their problem regarding material possessions and calmness. Hence, victims would be enabled to easily move forward from their case and move back on their daily survives (Braithwaite, 2014).   

The criminal can get different benefits by using the restorative justice such as getting opportunity to freely communicate about their illegal activity, and can get the resolution on time with higher success rate. The Restorative justice helps to an individual who has a big role for harming other person in case they show regret for their illegal activities. As a result, it would be beneficial for both criminals as well as sufferers.

In addition, criminal will enable to discuss about the whole incident with this justice system and can appeal to get compensation. Consequently, it can be stated that the uses of restorative justice is beneficial due to solving the criminal issues on the specified time. In oppose to this, criminal is liable for deteriorating to community and they cannot get compensation in case they did not show their regret behaviour (McElrea, 2013).     

It is argued that the implementation of Restorative justice in Australia can create certain issues such as complexity in decision making, integrating the aim, concept, procedure into the existing illegal justice structure. Through restorative justice, sometimes offenders face victimizing effects when interacting with victims. Hence, it can be illustrated that such situation can create the complexity to take appropriate decision (Mills, et al., 2013).

It is also stated that when victims have faced interpersonal violence then they could take decision-related to the settlement. Although, it could be possible in some cases but a large number of victims demand to punish the criminal for their harmful activity. Thus, it creates difficulty to implement the restorative justice within such kind of cases. Moreover, uses of restorative justice can arise biasness due to offering safety to only victims regarding the physically and psychologically risk (Nikolakis, et al., 2014).

The informality nature comes by bias justice structure, which can be reduced by stopping the appropriate protections and defenses for the particular victim. Moreover, the on-going power should be provided to both parties because it will decline the disparities between victims and criminal. The law expert has confirmed that the restorative justice can be used to manipulate the justice procedure and eliminate the crimes. Since, it provides the opportunity to criminal to appeal and discussion on the front of victims for their harmful activity (Payne, et al., 2015).  

Advantages for Victims and Criminals in Using Restorative Justice

The existing justice system is better than the Restorative justice system because this process is relied on free agreement to follow the resolution process at the time of justice delivery.

In addition, the Restorative justice system may pressurize to victims for using this system in case they gave the preference to the public interfere regarding their incidents. At the same time, it is very difficult for the victims to easily forgive the criminal for their harmful acts. Similarly, Restorative justice system may also face issues to motivate both criminal and victim for settlement (Reimer, 2017).

In Australia, different sources of justice structure have been more successful because they did not want to use the Restorative justice delivery system due to its limitation. The main issue of the restorative justice system is that this structure is more concentrates on the fulfillment of needs related to victims, offender, and societal group instead of penalizing the offender for their crime. The difference between this justice system and other is that the Restorative justice system treats offended as an activity dedicated in oppose to the societal community (Shapland, 2014).

Moreover, several experimental acts have significantly been accepted and extended due to complexities in the specified region. However, many pilot activities are not accepted across the Australia due to getting the unfavourable outcome. Therefore, it can be said that there is lack of Restorative system in the Australia due to its higher cost (Tsui, 2014).

It is argued that that several problems regarding the application of the Restorative justice system has been faced by the communities. These are a lower level of referral taxes, lack of ethnic session convenors, and a large volume of youth are deteriorating to perform for meetings. Another problem is lack of consciousness between the ethnic communities, and the Restorative justice regarding the potential advantages (Vaandering, 2014).  

The communities can try to decline such issues by enhancing the ethnic significance of the restorative justice activities, using a series of habits, involving the participation of specified community like associates and heads. Additional research is needed to greatly understand the restorative justice for determining its effect on the cultural and minor age communities in Australia (Ward, et al., 2014).

The cash flow issue is another significant factor which affects the application of Restorative justice structure. Since, there is need of the huge amount of cash to organise the program related to justice, which can create the problem for both victims as well as criminal. Additionally, the specified cash is required for accomplishing the whole process of justice delivery, which is difficult for victim to successfully arrange the whole amount. Therefore, it can be said that the cash flow is a major issue for community, victims, and criminals because it has negative impact on the Restorative justice delivery system (Weller, 2014).

Implementation Issues in Restorative Justice System

Conclusion

As per the above discussion, it can be concluded that the application of Restorative justice could be beneficial for both offender and victims. From the application of the Restorative justice, criminal can again start their life to new phase. Because, the Restorative justice system provides an opportunity to the criminal for explaining whole process of case and interacting with victims for regretting their harmful activity. At the same time, it can also be examined that such process can be significant to obtain the appropriate outcome.

Finally it can be summarized that the application of Restorative justice can be appropriate in in solving the issue of both criminal and victims. But, it is also examined that the Restorative justice system cannot be significant for the victims, offenders, and community due to biasness and dissimilar behaviors towards the incident. In addition, it can be illustrated that the restorative justice system identifies the criminal activity as a normal act, which makes it different from the other justice system. Therefore, victims prefer to take another source of justice for getting favourable decision. Moreover, it determines some significant factors such as expensive ensuing pilot activities, and cash flows issues. Others are rights of the safe guard and suitability and significance in cultural and ethnic groups. These factors can directly affect the restorative justice system at the time of making decision.

References

Braithwaite, J. (2014). SPECIAL ISSUE: Evidence for Restorative Justice. The Vermont Bar Journal, 40(2), pp. 18-22.

Bruce, J. (2013). Understanding Back Stage and Front Stage Work in Restorative Justice Conferences: The Benefits of Using Ethnographic Techniques. Current Issues Crim. Just., 25, P. 517.

Camilleri, P., Thomson, L., & McArthur, M. (2013). Needs or deeds? Child protection and youth justice in the Australian Capital Territory. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 35(2), pp. 193-206.

Cashmore, J. (2013). Juvenile justice: Australian court responses situated in the international context. In Australia's Children's Courts Today and Tomorrow, 4(3), pp. 197-207.

Connolly, M. (2013). Care and protection: Australia and the international context. In Australia's Children's Courts Today and Tomorrow, 3(2), pp. 187-196.

Daly, K. (2016). What is restorative justice? Fresh answers to a vexed question. Victims & offenders, 11(1), pp. 9-29.

McElrea, F. (2013). Restorative justice as a procedural revolution: some lessons from the adversary system. Civilizing Criminal Justice: An International Restorative Agenda for Penal Reform, 3(2), P.81.

Mills, L. G., Barocas, B., & Ariel, B. (2013). The next generation of court-mandated domestic violence treatment: A comparison study of batterer intervention and restorative justice programs. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 9(1), pp. 65-90.

Nikolakis, W., & Grafton, R. Q. (2014). Fairness and justice in indigenous water allocations: insights from Northern Australia. Water Policy, 16(S2), pp. 19-35.

Payne, A. A., & Welch, K. (2015). Restorative justice in schools: The influence of race on restorative discipline. Youth & Society, 47(4), pp. 539-564.

Reimer, K. (2017). An exploration of the implementation of Restorative justice in an Ontario public school. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 2(1), P. 119.

Shapland, J. (2014). Implications of growth: Challenges for restorative justice. International Review of Victimology, 20(1), pp. 111-127.

Tsui, J. C. (2014). Breaking Free do the Prison Paradigm: Integrating Restorative Justice Techniques into Chicago's Juvenile Justice System. J. Crim. L. & Criminology, 104, P. 635.

Vaandering, D. (2014). Implementing restorative justice practice in schools: What pedagogy reveals. Journal of Peace Education, 11(1), pp. 64-80.

Ward, T., Fox, K. J., & Garber, M. (2014). Restorative justice, offender rehabilitation and desistance. Restorative Justice, 2(1), 24-42.

Weller, P. (2014). Reconsidering legal capacity: radical critiques, governmentality and dividing practice. Griffith Law Review, 23(3), pp. 498-518.