{"id":84,"date":"2009-09-29T11:16:06","date_gmt":"2009-09-29T18:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lorennwalker.com\/blog\/?p=84"},"modified":"2010-04-03T10:32:39","modified_gmt":"2010-04-03T17:32:39","slug":"restorative-justice-protects-victims-v-retributive-justice-seeks-revenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lorennwalker.com\/blog\/?p=84","title":{"rendered":"Restorative Justice Protects Victims While Retributive Justice Seeks Revenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iirp.org\/library\/lwalker04.html\">Restorative justice values the voice of victims and works to protects their rights<\/a>.\u00a0 Another sad example of how our retributive justice system works to re-victimize victims, is the <a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2009\/CRIME\/09\/29\/polanski.victim.profile\/index.html\">story of a woman whose voice was not heard<\/a> or valued by the system.<\/p>\n<p>The woman was 13 years old in 1977 when charges were brought against movie director Roman Polanski for sexually assaulting her.\u00a0 Because Polanski fled the county before being sentenced for having sex with a minor, which he admitted, he has been sought ever since by the Los Angles prosecutor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>The woman said, &#8220;I have become a victim of the actions of the district attorney.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In an effort to protect her family and herself against the prosecutor\u2019s actions, the woman went so far as to petition the LA criminal court herself to have the charges against Polanski dismissed.\u00a0 She and her family have suffered emotional pain every time the facts of the case are retold.\u00a0 Especially disturbing for the woman has been the prosecutor&#8217;s recent release of the entire grand jury hearing transcript.<\/p>\n<p>Our retributive justice system is all about punishing offenders, and victims&#8217; needs are basically ignored to further this goal.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast restorative justice respects and cares about people\u2019s needs, and gives victims the opportunity to find ways to meet their unique needs.\u00a0 There is no excuse for not considering victims&#8217; needs.\u00a0 If the justice system cared more about their needs, there is a better chance that offenders would too.\u00a0 Our current system models the very behavior we don&#8217;t want: <em>revenge at the cost of hurting others<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Restorative justice can also be achieved without face to face meetings between offenders and victims.\u00a0 In Hawai\u2019i people have benefited from restorative interventions without such meetings.\u00a0 Victims have been successfully protected and at the same time offenders have experienced reduced recidivism.\u00a0 Please see publications on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uscourts.gov\/fedprob\/June_2009\/FocusedApproaches.html  \">Pono Kaulike program<\/a>: http:\/\/www.uscourts.gov\/fedprob\/June_2009\/FocusedApproaches.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Restorative justice values the voice of victims and works to protects their rights.\u00a0 Another sad example of how our retributive justice system works to re-victimize victims, is the story of a woman whose voice was not heard or valued by the system. The woman was 13 years old in 1977 when charges were brought against movie director Roman Polanski for sexually assaulting her.\u00a0 Because Polanski fled the county before being sentenced for having sex with&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lorennwalker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lorennwalker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lorennwalker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lorennwalker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lorennwalker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.lorennwalker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lorennwalker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lorennwalker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lorennwalker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}