Even here it is important to put aside judgments regarding those views and, at the same time, be clear about the possibilities and opportunities that may be offered by the Restorative Justice model. Mediators can only help parties to recognize available choices and to consider the likely consequences of those choices. To learn more about the use of Restorative Justice in criminal justice systems, please refer to the Howard Zehr article cited above. I find his ideas very useful and insightful. I have borrowed liberally from that article, and I have blended some of his ideas with my own.
Much deviance is expressive, a clumsy attempt to say something.
Let the crime then become a starting point for a real dialogue, and not for an equally clumsy answer in the form of a spoonful of pain. Social systems must be constructed so that a dialogue can take place in ways that reduce to a minimum the perceived need for infliction of pain for the purpose of social control. Nils Cristie, Limits to Pain.