1. Restorative Justice Potentials and key questions
Budapest April
Lode Walgrave

2. What is Restorative Justice?
A multitude of opinions
A definition: “Restorative justice is an option on doing justice after the occurrence of an offence which is primarily oriented towards repairing the individual, relational and social harm that is caused by that offence”
(L. Walgrave (2008), Restorative justice, Self-interest and Responsible Citizenship, Willan Punishing: 18)

3. Comments An outcome based definition Another, harm focused paradigm
Priority is not a monopoly
Replacing the punitive apriorism by a restorative apriorism
Restoration and reparation
Doing justice

4. Restorative justice and criminal punishment
Intentional infliction of pain vs. awareness of painfulness
Punishment as a means, restoration as a goal
Can punishment have reparative effects?
Expression of indignation and anger (victims and the public)
Research is not conclusive
Victims want public recognition, opportunity to express emotions, reasonable reparation

5. Ethical Problems with Punitive Apriorism
Instrumentalist claims are not met
Retributivism to canalize individual emotions, finally excludes emotions
Need for clear public censuring
Intuitive reciprocity leads to an idea of balance
But that does not necessarily mean the need for punishment

6. Restorative justice as an inversed constructive retributivism
Blaming norm transgression
Responsibility
Balance

7. Why restorative justice?
1. Socio-ethical options
RJ repositions the quality of social life as the central value of social behaviour
The quality depends on recognition of individual freedom and awareness of mutual dependency
Common self-interest

8. Why Restorative justice? (2)
Responding to sceptics
There is a basis for common self-interest
Investing in common self-interest is an ethical option
RJ is a part of an ethical and political movement
It is about giving priority, not exclusity

9. Why restorative justice? (3)
2. Empirical data (Latimer e.a. 2001, Kurki 2003, McCold 2003, Bonta e.a. 2006, Sherman & Strang 2007)
Victims who participate are not disappointed
Offenders understand better, and reoffending is generally slightly better
Public security is not worse

10. The question of legal safeguards
The legal safeguards of penal justice cannot be transferred unchanged to the different RJ-paradigm
Two fundamental values to preserve: (1) equivalence of all citizens (2) protection of citizens against abuse of power
The idea of inversed retributivism as a ground to develop legal safeguards in RJ
Lawyers as crucial partners in developing RJ

11. Conclusion: Potentials of RJ
Target on restoring individual and social life
Focus on what binds us, not what divides
From a top-down sentencing machine to a bottom-up problem-solving system
Priority for inclusive deliberation, reducing coercion
Expansion of RJ practices to other fields
Opportunity for citizens to experience the power of respectful dialogue
Basic trust in the constructive potentials of people to take active responsibility.