Retributive or Restorative?: A Descriptive Research on the Criminal Justice Understandings of Law Enforcements in Istanbul

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is the role of punishment philosophies in the determination of punishments; from this point of view, it is to determine the understanding of criminal justice that dominates the Turkish Criminal Justice system. In this context, among the criminal justice theories, retributive justice seeing punishment as the first and primary way of dealing with injustices in the criminal justice system and believes that justice is established when the courts sentence the defendants, and restorative justice questioning the adequacy and necessity of this system and renewing the sense of justice with the alternatives it offers are focused on. Here, the parameters through which law enforcement judges, prosecutors and lawyers evaluate these two dimensions in the determination of penalties are aimed to be revealed. The data of the research, in which the qualitative research method was used, were obtained from in-depth interviews with 62 judges, prosecutors and lawyers working in criminal law in Istanbul. The data obtained were analyzed using the Maxqda Plus 2020.4 computer program. As a result, it was observed that the law enforcement officers did not focus on only one dimension of the punishment, but made different evaluations according to the crime committed, the severity of the crime, the damage it caused, and the characteristics of the accused. The most striking point here is that clear-cut distinctions cannot be seen between retributive and restorative features contrary to what is claimed in foreign researches.