Punishment through Retributive Justice System

Restorative justice attempts to assist people affected by a particular crime to contribute towards making things right.  The proponents of this justice system emphasize on the needs of the aggrieved parties and restoration of the offenders. This system ensures that offenders become fully aware of the damages they caused and resulting liability in repairing the damage. Repairing the damage goes beyond the physical damage. It seeks to repair the relationships through exploring ways of healing the mind and heart.

Retributive justice, on the other hand, aims at punishing people who commit a crime, since such crimes are against the state. This system emphasizes on the need for restitution and reparation of the offenders over punishing them. The focus of the system is determining whether the person is guilty or not, and imposing punishment to deter recurrence of the same act.

Annotations

In chapter four of this book, the author looks at retributive and restorative justice, and gives the definition of each justice system in details. In the first section of the chapter, the book details the approaches of retributive justice and its theoretical perspectives. In the second section of the chapter, the author then goes on to explain the reasons against the restorative justice system. Then he explains the role of truth and reconciliation commissions, and the impact of forgiveness is seeking justice. In chapter five, the book discusses the negotiation between retributive and restorative justice which enables one to attain a solid understanding of the two systems. Moreover, the book gives the relation between justice and reconciliation. These issues will be particularly relevant for the essay since they relate to the topic of the essay.

This book defines retributive and restorative justice systems and gives situations where both systems are applicable. The book gives comprehensive details of the applicability of the systems, which is crucial in the topic of the essay. It explains that restorative justice aims at healing and restoring the community instead of punishing the offenders alone. The retributive justice, on the other hand, aims at aims at holding the offenders accountable of their wrongdoing through punishments and prosecution. In addition, it analysis the differences between the two justice systems and weaknesses of each system. Moreover, this author discusses truth and justice commissions and their roles and restoring the community. In addition, he discusses the ethics that govern the ethics that govern the commissions.

In chapter six of this book, the author starts by discussing why present system of punishment is likely to fail. He discusses the reasons why punishment does not always work, citing the fact the punishment is inefficient, is costly, does nothing is jot personal degrading, stigmatizing and humiliating and perpetuates conflict instead of settling it. In light of this, there is a need for an alternative system of justice which gives rise to restorative justice. This book gives the reasons why restorative justice is superior to the retributive system. It is also useful in helping one understand the conditions that are necessary in a justice system to be effective. This will be helpful for referencing purposes for the essay since this helps understand reasons why governments and people should employ alternative justice systems as opposed to the retributive in place in many countries.