When we approach the concept of Restorative Justice is to understand What is it and what is its purpose?, so at first we can affirm that it is a process in which the victim and the offender, or other possible interveners (eg prosecutor's office, lawyers, members of the community), who are affected by a crime, participate jointly or separately and of course in an active way in the resolution of matters derived from the crime, with the help of a mediator.
With the Master in Mediation and Management of disciplinary conflicts You will be trained in this field that is currently in demand, where you will acquire knowledge such as that explained in this post and you will be able to act as a mediator throughout the Spanish territory.
Restorative Justice and mediation
In Restorative Justice and with the help of mediation, as a tool, an attempt is made to finding solutions that encourage those involved in a criminal offense or in the commission of any criminal offense to listen instead of using force, dialogue instead of confront, or in other words, the opportunity is being given for these people, whether they are offenders or victims, to become aware of the situation and always act for the common well-being.
These solutions, that is, these measures through which it is intended to put an end to the punitive act, are given, among others, for carrying out work for the benefit of the Community, as well as the Restorative Dialogues workshops.
Specifically through these programs, learning is acquired for peaceful resolution of conflicts that may arise both in their daily lives and with regard to their future social reintegration.
When I talk about these workshops, I am referring to the possibility that, through these, people also learn take responsibility and repair the damage caused, because what is fundamentally intended is to find solutions that encourage compensation and not retaliation. In this way, Restorative Justice encourages offenders to use their behavior to restore the damage caused.
Principles and measures
For this, there are a series of principles and measures which I will detail below.
Regarding the beginning we met with:
- Responsibility, first and foremost, because without responsibility, that is, assumption of one's behavior, there is no restoration.
- Minimum judicial intervention, and thus avoid the most serious attacks directed at legal assets
- The individualization of interventions, that is, treating each person as each person, for themselves, individualizing the problem
- The diversification of different educational interventions, especially with juvenile offenders.
In relation to the measures that are carried out are the following:
- Stimulate dialogue
- Help put yourself in someone else's shoes
- Cultivate empathetic attitudes
- Take care of personal responsibility processes
- Avoid the frequent confusion between ethical responsibility
- Allow the protagonists to see their presence reaffirmed within the framework of institutional intervention in their conflict.
In this way you can see the need for the application of this type of Justice, as well as the importance of mediation in this area, since with it, criminal law is humanized and as some theorist says With mediation it is about putting a face and biography to the depersonalized bureaucracy of the criminal process.
Likewise, it is worth highlighting, as we have mentioned previously, the Dialogue as a tool of a singular and functional character for both the prevention and resolution of the conflict, affirming without a doubt that the resolution is truly healing.
Confrontation does not help, it only harms people who have been immersed in this type of situation more.
What is the purpose of the dialogue?
We can ask ourselves What is the purpose of the dialogue? Well, fundamentally, the offender takes responsibility for the criminal act and the damage caused, which implies the voluntary recognition of authorship, this moment becoming the starting point for the effective resolution of the conflict, that is, it is necessary for the perpetrator to have the strength and above all the awareness of recognizing and accepting that your action has caused an injury or damage that must be repaired.
For this reason, I can also add that mediation in the field of Restorative Justice also has another purpose and that is to create a space for communication between those involved where their interests can be satisfied. And how is it achieved?At this moment we use dialogue as a tool in that space of communication between the parties, that is, between those where the conflict has arisen and which must be resolved.
If retributive justice places its emphasis on social function of Criminal Law, so that violence is responded to with more violence, or by threatening the offender with a sentence of deprivation of liberty, in prison, however, the Restorative Justice advocates emphasizing the prevention of crimes, as well as the pacification of conflicts that arise.
Finally we can conclude that every day the presence of restorative justice is greater and that it goes beyond the mechanisms that make it up: mediting, conciliation, group conferences and sentencing circles, aims to overcome the paradigm of punitive justice, marginalizing confrontation and prioritizing dialogue.
