By: Patrick J. Smith
There are two major theories that attempt to justify why we
punish—utilitarianism and retributivism. Utilitarianism is
forward-looking and seeks to view punishment in terms of exacting
the greatest prospective good for the collective. Pain is
inflicted as a means of either (or both) deterring the commission
of crimes or ensuring that repeat offenses do not occur.
Retributivism, on the other hand, attempts to understand punishment
as a response to a singular past event that involves a wrong to the
victim, but is primarily an injury to the state. The
wrongdoer is punished not as a means to producing the greatest
societal good, but rather as a consequence of the wrongdoer’s
choice to commit a crime.
Restorative justice has been described as both a new theory of
punishment as well as a new method of approaching how criminals are
punished. Restorative justice is a relatively new movement in
the field of criminology. The approach can be described as a
process whereby parties with a stake in a specific offense resolve
collectively how to deal with the aftermath of the offense and its
implications for the future. Rather than simply focusing on
either the net-good of the community or redressing the crime
committed, restorative justice seeks in some sense to do both, but
perhaps even more. The approach rejects the view that crime
is primarily an offense against the state, though it recognizes
that a community is harmed when one violates the rules. First
and foremost the movement asserts that crime is more than
lawbreaking. Restorative justice does more, however, than
simply recognize those parties that have been injured. It
also urges that a more complete concept of justice means allowing
those same injured parties, rather than just the state and the
wrongdoer, to participate in the response to the crime.
Restorative justice attempts to repair the damage done to both the
individuals most affected, and society as a whole.