Restorative Justice
Source: Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses, 1990; Maori, Navajo, and Ubuntu traditions; Sherman and Strang, Restorative Justice: The Evidence, 2007
Finding
A framework defining crime as harm to people and relationships rather than violation of the state’s laws. Brings offender, victim, and community together for accountability and repair. Draws on indigenous traditions: Maori family group conferences, Navajo peacemaking, Ubuntu-based reconciliation. Evidence indicates recidivism reductions compared to conventional proceedings, though magnitude varies by program design and population.
Pattern Mapping
Alignment — If the purpose is justice, the response should align with repair, not merely punishment. Retributive justice focuses on what the offender deserves. Restorative justice focuses on what the victim needs.
Proportion — Restorative processes calibrate the response to the specific harm. A teenager who vandalized a fence meets the owner and repairs it — proportional in a way standardized sentencing may not be.
Honesty — The offender faces the reality of what they did through direct encounter with the person harmed, not through legal abstraction.
Connections
- Truth and Reconciliation Commissions — restorative justice at national scale
- Proportionality of Punishment — both seek calibrated response; different mechanisms
- Tikkun Olam — repair of the world as religious obligation parallels restorative justice (→ SPIRIT)
- Wound Healing — biological repair: the body restores, not punishes (→ BODY)
- Buddhist Middle Way — response calibrated between extremes (→ SPIRIT)
Status
Established field with growing evidence base. See Zehr (1990), Sherman and Strang (2007), Consedine (1995).
The mapping to the five properties is this project’s structural interpretation.