With regard to the second factor, until recently judges have had few incentives to implement changes to make their courts more responsive to victim concerns. In general, juvenile courts have been slow to develop policies to mandate, authorize, or encourage judges to devote greater attention to the needs of crime victims or to invite increased victim involvement into the court process. Furthermore, little persuasive logic has been offered by the judiciary, criminal justice researchers, or victim advocates to link the victims' agenda either to the traditional individual treatment and best interests mandates of juvenile courts or to the new retributive juvenile justice agenda. This lack of guidance will make it difficult for these juvenile courts and justice systems to integrate crime victims' needs and concerns with other rationales for justifying the existence of a distinctive court and justice system for juveniles. What Is Restorative Justice estorative justice is a new way of thinking about and responding to crime.
Crime damages people, communities, and relationships.
If crime is about harm, then the justice process should emphasize repairing the harm. As a vision for systemic juvenile justice reform, restorative justice suggests that the response to youth crime must strike a balance among the needs of victims, offenders, and communities, encouraging each to be actively involved to the greatest extent possible in the justice process. The most new and important ideas in restorative justice are expressed in a set of principles that redefines the way justice systems address public safety, sanctioning, and rehabilitative objectives. Although questions of guilt, lawbreaking, and appropriate intervention are certainly vital to prosecutors, these questions alone may lead to a limited range of interventions based solely on treatment and punishment, which cannot meet the complex needs of the community, victim, offender, and family. Viewed through the restorative lens, crime is understood in a broader context than what is suggested by the questions of guilt and how to punish or treat the offender.