Law

Restorative Justice

The system of justice practice in Australia is one where both the offender and the victim are left damaged but never restored and we need to do what we can to correct this problem. I have been thinking over for some time on the principal of the cities of refuge that were established in the New State of Israel as Joshua led his people across the Jordan River to take possession of their home land promised to them by God. The purpose of the cities of refuge was to protect the offender from the victim’s retaliation until the memory of the crime ‘was no more’. To understand what is being said here we need to understand the Hebrew concept presented here. The crime will always be remembered but the desire to take revenge can be set aside and the purpose of the city of refuge was to deliver protection and to bring about full restoration to all parties.

It is often expressed outside of a court room after a judgement has been pronounced by the victim/s, “I will never forgive”. This shows the evidence of the damage that must be repaired before the trust between the victim and the offender can be returned; I must say that if the victim is never repaired then over time the justice system is held in low esteemed by the ever increasing group of angry victims. I will not be so naive to believe that all will be restored but our justice system cannot deliver true justice until the path way to restoration of severed relationships is constructed. The judicial process must assess the damage caused and build the pathway to recovery or we will have angry simmering people throughout our cities and towns and as this rises without attention we are building a volcano to erupt in our streets in violence greater than we have seen in this country. I believe that the Eureka Stockade came out of this sort of problem caused by the behaviour of corrupt policing officials that was left without any good attention.

In the case of property theft or damage the restoration of the property does not solve the whole problem as there is the emotional attachment to property rights can be violated and cause future insecurity and anger. The repairing of these emotional issues is as important as catching the offender and passing judgement. The offender needs to be made aware that it is not a property issue alone and that personal violation of the victim’s emotional well being has been assaulted as well. So judgement must be to bring restoration and punishment alone cannot achieve this. I find it so strange that we have a department of Corrective Services that does not correct but it produces more anger in it ‘clients’. As angry inmates are released back into the community after serving their time, the probability of reoffending is increased.  There has to be a better way.

I also find that victims of rape are never brought through to a healed state, sure the physical injuries are repaired but the emotional scares are never looked at. So we have victims attending meetings re-living their trauma with other victims and this deepens the emotional hurt but cannot repair it. Some of the aspects of the crime of rape it the removal of the victims self esteem, self worth, and to control them.  This whole current approach is to extend the offender’s control over the victim and not to find a release for them from the offence. We must do this better. The offender needs to understand the extent of the control that he must release back to the victim in his recovery from that crime.

I am of the view that we need to deal with two aspects in the justice system and that is punishment and rehabilitation.  It may be the case that a person should receive a penalty in regard to the punishment and then a process of rehabilitation must be commenced and progressed sufficiently far enough to be able to determine that restoration is more probable than not before release into society after a custodial sentence. I do recognise that the determining of this process is a new concept and will be difficult to implement smoothly and without hiccups but recovery of good citizens must be the main game of the Justice System. Without restoration Justice has not happened and we should not put up with anything less than true justice.

The Christian Democratic Party will amend all relevant laws so that when dealing with a criminal investigation both the victim and the perpetrator will be subjects of the investigation. The intent of the investigation will be to find the extent of the harm caused to the victim and who the perpetrator is and how they got to the place to become a perpetrator of a crime. The court case will do three things recommend a pathway to recovery for the victim; determine the penalty for the crime and the pathway for recovery for the perpetrator of the crime.  The department of Corrective Services will become involved in the correction of persons affected by criminal events and support a process that will bring about restoration of all persons brought to their care. This will require greater funding and yet over time it is believed that the total cost to society of criminal act should be reduced as recovery for both sides of the crime should bring a less vindictive and aggressive society and then the desire to be involved in criminal acts should be reduced from a more just society.

An example of restoritive justice is seen in our drug  courts proposal

Drug courts

CDP supports the concept of drug courts operating on the following basis:
The party appearing before the court pleads guilty to a felony, possession of a controlled substance, or a forged prescription or possession with intent to distribute.
The plea is held in abeyance until the person completes an approved rehabilitation course.  On graduation, the plea is withdrawn and criminal charges are dismissed. 
Course participants are checked during the course through urine tests.  If participants relapse, they need to start the course again or face criminal charges.