Morality
- As long as the public, encouraged by media, continues to be anxious about crime, it will be difficult to abandon get tough on crime policies.
- Restorative justice is often seen as a soft approach to crime and reintroducing these offenders into the community is seen as being inconsistent with crime reduction.
- Public pressure can influence a judge to adopt a sentencing approach that appears stiffer on the criminal.
- Judges are human and thus their behavior is based on human emotion. A judge will seek the greatest good for the greatest number however they too are limited by their emotion and morality; it is impossible to entirely separate law from morality simply because of human involvement. Therefore, if the public demands a sentencing or the judge has displayed precedent leaning towards stiffer sentences, odds are the offender will not receive the ‘’softer’’ restorative justice approach.
- Justice is difficult to achieve; regardless of victim/offender involvement, both parties will be left wanting more. Justice is ‘’an ideal, an aspiration, which is supremely important and worth striving for constantly and tirelessly’’ (Hudson, 2003 p.192).
- Victims are likely to seek vindication for their sufferings caused by the offender.
The Bad man
- The bad man is a reference point any lawyer must understand in the criminal justice system; it is what empowers a lawyer to pursue their client’s case whether right or wrong: that an offender does not care for the morality of his or her actions.
- An offender commits an act rationally, following the hedonistic perspective they weigh the outcomes and make a rational, thought based decision to commit an act against social morality. By doing so, he or she is in breach of the social contract and therefore must be punished.
- At this point, knowing the punishment is impending, the offender takes on the persona “the bad man” and seeks only to reduce their sentencing to the least amount of time possible regardless of the damages caused to the victim.
- This in itself degrades the idea of a sincere apology and further promotes self-interest. In the case of Restorative Justice, the offender is seeking to minimize their punishment and is very likely to pretend to be sorry, rather than truly be sorry for their actions.
Fairness
- Fairness is a measure of the behavior of the professionals.
- Being polite is easier to do when you are not the offender.
- Restoratives requires certain qualities more evidenced in adults than adolescents and require the ability to take responsibility.
- The victim influences the level of fairness done to the offender throughout the process.