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Punitive vs Restorative

Punitive - intended to punish someone; inflicting, involving or aiming at punishment.
Restorative - having the ability to make a person feel strong or healthy again; relating to restoration
Punitive/Retributive Justice - a theory of justice which holds that the best response to a crime is a proportionate punishment, inflicted for its own sake rather than to serve an extrinsic social purpose, such as deterrence or rehabilitation of the offender.
Restorative Justice - a system of criminal justice that focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large.

Speaking of justice, there is always a distinction of those who are the victims or close relative of the victims and those who are the concerned citizens. Victims and relatives of victims usually want revenge and retribution to the fullest with no mercy. Concerned citizens merely show their sympathy and support the cause of the victims or relatives. Victims do not forget and most of the times cannot forgive especially if the crime perpetrated on them are so hurting that they wail instead of just crying. Concerned citizens show forgiveness and sometimes urge the victims to move on. Everybody has been in these two situations. Then, there are the offenders, the perpetrators, the criminals who put strain to the community. There are offenders who go scott-free and there are those who are convicted of the felony that they subject their victims. For the convicted felons, there is also a distinction between those who really are sorry and those that can still afford to hold their heads up. The sorry ones carry the burden of their crime until their death. Those that merely bow down their heads just let time pass by and it's back to normal. Being back to normal also has distinction between the normal self of a person and the normal self as an offender.

The idea of punishment to the offenders favor the revenge requirement of the victim and loudly spoken by concerned citizens. Inflicting damages is justified by the previous actions of the perpetrators.

Then, after serving the sentence of the crime, the convict is freed into the community again, everybody hoping that he/she is already a changed man and on the other hand, he can have the same attitude and psyche as before. How did he/she change? What are the activities that made him/her change? Or why is he/she not changing? What are the activities that made him/her stay as he/she is?

The purpose of imprisonment is to have somebody change to a better person. Then, there will then be a distinction between a better person (a change from bad to good) and a better offender (more angst and criminal mindset than ever).

This delimma has been hounding the world over. Thus, restorative justice has been set-up, to mold offenders back to the fold of law and order. No more punishment and physical penalties. But then, a distinction between no punishment and having criminals do livelihood programs arise. With no physical penalties, some convicts may be thankful and others will be joyfully realizing that crime does pay. For those engage in livelihood programs, compensation may be small due to their "criminal" status and may result to haphazard realization of the gravity of their crime while some maybe fully regretting because of lost opportunity. In the end, the purpose of detaining offenders just goes to naught.

For all its intent and purpose, prison and detention of offenders should compensate the pain of the victims and their immediate families, feed the curiosity of the concerned citizens and mold back offenders to follow what is just and right. If any of these is not addressed, a criminal justice system must find new ways to get people back to its original self, a good one.

One question though, is there really a method to address these? Let's see in the next weblog!!!

I have so many questions without answers and so many thoughts that awaits questions.




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