Restorative Justice - Criticisms

Criticisms

Although there is not much opposition to the theory or ideological basis for restorative or transformative justice, there is some contention as to whether or not it will work in practice. Some views on this are represented by Levrant, who thinks that the acceptance of restorative justice is based more on “humanistic sentiments” rather than restorative justice’s effectiveness. According to Morris, some of the most common criticisms that used against the practicality or realism of restorative justice are:

...restorative justice erodes legal rights; restorative justice results in net-widening; restorative justice trivializes crime (particularly men’s violence against women); restorative justice fails to ‘restore’ victims and offenders; restorative justice fails to effect real change and to prevent recidivism; restorative justice results in discriminatory outcomes; restorative justice extends police powers; restorative justice leaves power imbalances untouched; restorative justice leads to vigilantism; restorative justice lacks legitimacy; and restorative justice fails to provide ‘justice’.

Another critique of restorative justice suggests that professionals are often left out of the restorative justice conversation. Albert W. Dzur and Susan M. Olson argue that this sector of justice cannot be successful without professionals. They claim that professionals can aid in avoiding problems that come up with informal justice and propose the theory of democratic professionalism, where professionals are not just agents of the state – as traditional understandings would suggest – but as mediums, promoting community involvement while still protecting individuals’ rights.

Additionally, some critics like Gregory Shank and Paul Takagi see restorative justice as an incomplete model in that it fails to fix the fundamental, structural inequalities that make certain people more likely to be offenders than others. They question the structure of society and the fairness of institutional systems at their very core, pushing for more understanding of root causes.