Analysis of Restorative Justice in Handling School Bullying

Abstract

The phenomenon of school bullying is widely present in schools in China and traditional criminal justice is too tough on the governance of school bullying. By now, a few cases of school bullying in China are in the form of guilty verdicts, and a large number of cases that do not constitute crimes are solved through school criticism and education. Little consideration is given to repairing the relationship between bullies and their victims whose legitimate interests are supposed to be protected. In this context, the author introduces restorative justice in this paper and studies the implementation of restorative justice in handling school bullying in Japan, so as to summarize successful experiences that can be used for references based on the basic national conditions of China. Conclusions can be drawn that restorative justice aims at restoring community order and reaffirming community values by fixing damaged relationships. In terms of the implementation of restorative justice in school bullying, Japan has a clear classification of juvenile institutions, where great efforts are made to balance the offenders rights and responsibilities. Meanwhile, the rights and interests of victims are considered first when implementing restorative measures. China can learn from these aspects and improve accordingly in the future so that the problem of school bullying can be better solved through the implementation of restorative justice.