Comments on: What do restorative justice and revenge have in common?

By: KızOyunları

KızOyunları — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 15:13:41 +0000

Good article. But one question is justice realy justice that is given? Still have this question in my mind.

By: Military college

Military college — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:09:29 +0000

Very interesting post, one thing I realized that we needed a peaceful response that balance for the wrong doing.

By: Kral Oyun

Kral Oyun — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:23:54 +0000

Amazing. Pls keep writing

Thanks

By: Erik

Erik — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:03:44 +0000

You give me much to think about. I never thought about it that way. What can be more different than restorative justice and revenge.

By: Federico Reggio

Federico Reggio — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:51:22 +0000

Just a quick note and one question, Howard.
Yes, etimology seems to confirm that revenge and restoration have in common much more than what it seems. Vindicare (which, by the way, according to Vico was one of the goals of punishment) had a wide range of meaning in latin: it goes from the idea of retaliation-revenge to the idea of re-composition, reparation (as you noticed, these words have in common the perception of a unjustly broken balance). (In the evolution of the italian language, instead, the word has suffered from a clear semantic restriction, so ‘vendicare’ only means ‘to revenge’, to ‘make justice on your own’).
In early roman law, vindication was the name of a specific ritual (‘vindicatio’): the person who had suffered a certain loss (a good stolen, damaged or some other type of wrong, usually in facts it was adopted for things and objects of property) claimed the property or the restitution of that specific good by mean of a stick (‘vindex’).
Early roman law had many rituals, also with a religious background, anyway it seems that the use of this stick symbolised both the violence of the wrong act which originated the claim and, on the other hand, the passage from violent tit-for-tat replies to ritualised forms of adjudication (the stick, in facts, was thin, and never used violently against the counter-part).
If this is true, vindication, as you said, embodied the need of ‘naming the offence’, receiving a public (communitarian) acknowledgement that a wrong had occurred, and the renounce to self-violence and it opened a process for restoring a right balance in inter-subjective relations.
Now let me state a question… I agree with you: the “efforts towards amend by the one who offended must be costly”, but does this mean that restoration can also imply some retributive measures? I was trying to think about an example.. say that community members, during a circle sentencing, advance the request of adding, to the reparative measures agreed upon by victim and offender, some other measures which include, for instance, some months of detention. Would this divert from a truly restorative solution?

By: World of Science

World of Science — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:45:47 +0000

Nice article. Keep up the nice work…

By: TopDog

TopDog — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:31:47 +0000

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By: Emerson

Emerson — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:58:59 +0000

Really very good article, thanks!! An environment that humanizes the "other" is really very good and interesting !! http://www.artezanalnet.com.br/Artezanal/Poltronas.htm

By: Gerry Johnstone

Gerry Johnstone — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:22:43 +0000

Thanks for another very thoughtful piece, Howard. This opens up a topic which, I think, is an extremely important one for advocates and practitioners of restorative justice. Simplistic labelling of vengeful feelings as bad do not convince those who regard such feelings as not only functional in some contexts (as you point out) but also morally appropriate in certain context. Of course, how we as a society handle such vengeful feelings is another matter – and here restorative justice has the potential to provide a meaningful but at the same time constructive response, which compares favourably with that of conventional criminal justice on many points.
One work that Iwoudl add to the list is Jeffrie Murphy’s short and very readable ‘Getting Even: Forgiveness and Its Limits’ .