Toward a Restorative Approach to Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility

COMMUNITY-BASED AND RESTORATIVE-JUSTICE INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE OVER-POLICING

This article delves into the critical importance of legal ethics and professional responsibility in the legal profession, emphasizing their role in upholding justice and societal trust. Legal ethics provide a comprehensive framework for lawyers to maintain professionalism, integrity, and competence. Integrity requires honesty and transparency, while competence demands continuous learning to navigate evolving legal landscapes. Lawyers also have a duty to maintain client confidentiality and avoid conflicts of interest. Professional responsibility extends beyond individual cases, encompassing obligations to clients, the courts, and society. Lawyers must act in their clients’ best interests and uphold the integrity of the legal system. Additionally, they play a role in promoting access to justice and the rule of law. Challenges brought by technology, globalization, and shifting societal norms require lawyers to adapt while preserving core ethical values. Continuous education and robust regulatory frameworks are vital for ensuring adherence to ethical standards and professional responsibilities. The legal profession’s ability to evolve and uphold these principles is crucial for its continued role in safeguarding justice and societal trust.

Among members of the legal profession and judiciary throughout the world, there is a genuine concern with establishing and maintaining high ethical standards. It is not difficult to understand why this should be so. Nor is it difficult to see that professional standards are not completely divorced from ordinary morality. Indeed, legal ethics and professional responsibility are more than a set of rules of good conduct; they are also a commitment to honesty, integrity, and service in the practice of law. In order to ensure that the standards established are the right ones, it is necessary first of all to examine important philosophical and policy issues, such as the need to reconsider the boundaries between, on the one hand, a lawyer's obligation to a client and, on the other, the public interest. It is also to be appreciated that conflicts of interest are pervasive and that all too often they are so common that they are not recognised as such. Yet rarely is public policy clearly cut. The book analyses the ethical rules pertaining to the judiciary, the Bar, and solicitors; it looks at the specific issues of confidentiality and the particular ethical problems in the family and criminal law jurisdictions; it finishes with a chapter which examines what lawyers may learn from looking at the study of medical ethics.

Restorative justice is a movement with traction. People are excited by it. They are volunteering in growing numbers to make it happen. Some people are even getting paid to do it, especially in schools, and usually through nonprofits like Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, Community Works, and the Insight Prison Project (all discussed in this issue). Marilyn Armour’s article (page 25) sums up the progress so far.Its practitioners say the movement’s innovative practices have immediate benefits and radical long-term potential.There is hope, first, that it will keep young people and especially young people of color out of the criminal justice system, out of the school-to-prison pipeline. Once that is well under way, many believe that other visions will appear possible, all the way to the end of prisons as we know them and a reconception of the entire legal system (see Peter Gabel’s piece on page 18). Many hope this movement can also provide new ways of responding both to conflicts in general (Kay Pranis, page 33) and to the inherited oppressive structures of race and class (see Fania Davis’s piece on page 30, Denise Breton’s on page 45).Restorative justice may be poised for a breakthrough into public awareness. It would be a boon for budget-cutting politicians and taxpayers if only the public could buy into it. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area it costs around $50,000 to run a juvenile offender through the justice system, not counting the cost of incarceration if there is to be any, versus about $4,500 for a restorative process that typically leaves the victim much more satisfied, the young person reintegrated into the community without even being charged with a crime and much less likely to reoffend, and many community members relieved and grateful. Multiply the criminal justice cost many times for adults locked away for years.But the rub is, punishment is nowhere seen in this process—unless, when you have harmed someone, you consider listening to them express their pain to be punishment, rather than a chance to develop empathy for them, see yourself in a different light, and learn and change in whatever way you now perceive is needed. Some consider that process tougher even than receiving punishment. Others think it’s being “soft on crime.”Can a justice movement not based on punishment grow fast enough to win at the ballot box, even in an über-liberal city? In September the New York Times noted that “Restorative justice has long had proponents in some corners of the criminal justice system, but it is now gaining prominence in an unlikely forum: the San Francisco district attorney’s race.” We go to press too soon to know the result.Or will restorative justice appeal more to small-government and traditional-values conservatives? Some of its elements do appeal to the Right, others to reformist liberals, others to radicals, including prison abolitionists. Of course, there are also elements that each of these players may dislike or hate. And no one will resist it more than the prison-industrial complex and the politicians in its pockets.How it is presented by the media will be critical, but perhaps not decisive: it is how well it works in practice, in those places innovative enough to fund it, that will likely be decisive.Most articles in this issue come from progressive and radical activists, scholars, lawyers, and teachers who are writing wholly from within the restorative justice movement. We are centering their voices because it is they who have both the strongest hope for the transformative power of the movement and the most practical understanding of how the vision of restorative justice can take shape on the ground.While most restorative justice practitioners initially seem to present a unified front, there are certainly differences among them if you listen more closely. Some authors in this issue raise controversial issues within the movement directly, others by inference only. If they criticize anyone, notice how gently they do so. The movement has only got where it has by its practitioners’ commitment to reach out to the humanity in the other, to listen, to suggest and not to judge. A South Asian Buddhist goes to a conservative Florida town to support white Christians in developing a groundbreaking restorative approach to plea bargaining in a murder case (page 22). A survivor of child abuse works with prisoners in San Quentin prison, most of them serving life sentences for violent crimes (page 35). These practitioners could not do their groundbreaking work if they allowed either left-wing or right-wing stereotypes of prosecutors, conservative Christians, or lifers to cloud their vision. That doesn’t mean that restorative practitioners are blind to the realities of power and white supremacy, the legacies of genocide and slavery, the depredations of profiteers, or the violence inherent in the structure of our prison system. But their whole practice is to reach across any divide and connect, empathically.I am writing this article from a slightly different place, as a kind of sympathetic cartographer of the movement. I have felt drawn to restorative justice since first writing about it in Tikkun (September/October 2009) and have started to attend trainings in the field. So with one foot planted inside the restorative justice movement as a student and the other in more journalistic territory, I am hoping to offer a different perspective: a beginner’s bird’s-eye glance at some of the controversial issues both outside and within the movement, and at factors that may be enabling it to gather traction. I am offering this analysis not in a spirit of divisiveness but with the genuine hope that it will help readers who have never heard of the restorative justice movement to grasp the diversity of worldviews within it and understand where opposition and support are likely to arise. It is important for those within the movement to understand ways in which restorative justice is seen by individuals and groups from different places on the political spectrum, from conservative to moderate, and liberal to radical.Once restorative justice becomes a well-known policy option, I assume that small-government conservatives will welcome the budget savings and tax relief, provided they can be convinced that diversions from prison are not dangerous to society. The remarkable experience of New Zealand, which for over twenty years has run its entire juvenile justice system on restorative principles, and has closed its juvenile detention centers, should reassure them. As this experience is not well known in the United States, we are delighted to share an excellent survey of it by one its leading proponents, Judge Fred McElrea, as an online-only article accompanying this print issue.Many social conservatives, especially of a traditional Christian bent, already warm to the notion of bringing offenders to a point of remorse and genuine accountability, and then to redemption, a true change of heart. Chuck Colson, one of the players in the Watergate scandal (long since reformed as a born-again Christian), is considered by many to be America’s leading prison reformer as well as one of its leading Christian conservatives. Excoriating overcrowding and inhuman conditions, Colson signs on to a faith-based strand of restorative justice.However, the centrality of religious conversion to Colson’s version of restorative justice presents a concern for the mainstream movement. Further, conservative philosophy typically blames the individual’s sinful human nature rather than environmental factors in generating crime. Mainstream restorative justice operates from a different model. It is based neither on a medical model of the pathology of the offender, nor on a Christian model of the offender’s sinful nature and dependence on a Higher Power. Instead, a model of mainstream restorative justice is more likely to include concepts such as mutuality, respect, active listening, empathy for ourselves and those we have harmed or been harmed by, a focus on self-empowerment and attendance to the deeper needs of those involved, and the questioning and unlearning of prevailing punitive belief systems. For instance, the behavioral changes noted in violent men through mainstream restorative practices typically result from their coming to understand how they developed strategies to survive child abuse, poverty, racism, police brutality, or other environmental stresses and bought into the prevailing “male role belief system”; from this understanding, as well as from the care of peers and facilitators, flows empathy for their younger selves and then for their victims. The hope of many restorative justice practitioners is that such transformed men (and women) will become participants in reforming the social conditions and inequities that so restricted their options, in addition to practicing emotional maturity in their daily relationships.Many Christians find this development of empathy and social responsibility entirely compatible with Christianity, whether it involves Christian belief or not, but this is not the typical Christian conservative view. However, to an observer like me, both Colsonesque and mainstream restorative justice seem to have much in common—both believe in the individual’s ability to change. As more violent offenders transform themselves through both paths and meet and talk, I assume there will be cross-fertilization.Still, many conservatives who do believe in redemption see it as entirely compatible with punishment. Anyone harmed by crime is likely to feel colossal anger and so traditional notions of “an eye for an eye” will always have great appeal, especially if no mechanisms exist for satisfying the victim’s needs for empathy, answers, or restoration. If restorative options start to divert large numbers from prison, conservative investors in the prison-industrial complex will surely mobilize to protect their investment. They are likely to fund emotive appeals for punishment, many of them in traditional (and selective) biblical terms, and possibly with racist overtones.The essence of mainstream restorative justice is a practice of listening and empathy that is by nature corrosive of ideology and self-righteousness. Thus, combining thorough personal accountability with an understanding of the ways one’s environment has molded one is a complex task, not easily assimilated into some conservatives’ worldview. But that may change.On balance, I assume that most hardcore conservatives will not go for mainstream restorative justice. However, many middle-of-the-road people, including many evangelical Christians, may well support it when they see how well it works for crime victims they know and for any of their own relatives and friends who are arrested for offenses. In a recent case it was remarkable how quickly some police families came around to wanting a restorative justice option when one of their own kids was caught in a possible offense. If approval grows in middle America, it will mainly be because of positive personal experiences that will contradict the media stereotypes and polemics approving punitive justice.The appeal for liberals may be obvious: take better care of victims; drastically reduce the prison system; spend the money on education and public aid instead; reject ugly emotions of revenge; and reintegrate offenders into the community where they can lead productive lives and pay taxes.But what would liberals make of Peter Gabel’s vision of an astonishingly different kind of legal system? Some might feel that’s going too far. That’s to admit that fear of the other has been central to the liberal project all along. That’s to allow that the vaunted rationality of liberalism never has been free of emotion, but has too often been put to the service of a set of fears that serve neither love nor connection. To consciously serve love might be to infect public discourse with emotionality, spirituality, and even religion, in something of a creeping revolution.Something that’s too revolutionary for many liberals should sound good to radical anti-racists and anti-capitalists. Yet, there is something highly distasteful, or suspect, about restorative justice for many radicals.The greatest difficulty for the radical Left is implicit in Fania E. Davis’s words in this issue: “I would say this movement is more subversive than any of the revolutionary movements in which I have been involved since the 1950s. All previous social justice movements have kept us trapped in discordant, binary, either-or, right-wrong, and us-versus-them ways of being present to one another and to the earth.” Binaries are as central to the Left as they are to the Right. Many people have considered Right and Left to be equally self-righteous, equally prone to demonize the other side.It’s not just that someone like Sunny Schwartz (page 37) works for the sheriff’s department and expresses a vision for how corrections can become a noble profession, which looks to many radicals like collaboration with the imperialist and racist state. It’s also that restorative justice seeks to foster a sense of personal accountability in individuals who have perpetrated crimes. Doing so requires more focus on individuals—including on convicted members of oppressed races and classes—than some radicals are comfortable with. Some fear that restorative justice’s focus on individual accountability suggests that it’s the individuals’ fault they are in prison, not the fault of the system.If you imagine that Sunny Schwartz is compromising too much with the American empire, it is worth noting that the central anti-violence teaching in her program is provided by Manalive, which was developed by Hamish Sinclair. Sinclair cut his teeth organizing coal miners and their families in eastern Kentucky and autoworkers in Detroit in the 1960s who were all losing their union jobs as capital sought higher returns elsewhere. He saw his part of the Detroit resistance movement destroyed by the violent objections of union men toward women in their lives who wanted to share in the organizing. Sinclair dedicated his life to building programs for working-class men that would enable them to opt out of the “male role belief system,” in order to organize effectively with women when the times became conducive to organizing once more. Personal accountability and political organizing are two equal sides of Sinclair’s coin; he understands that neither comes easily and neither is complete without the other. One could argue that failure to grasp this has been the bane of most revolutions by radical utopians and of most elected social democratic parties as well. Animal Farm tells the classic tale of revolutionaries who both demonize the oppressor and, because they harbor romantic notions about the ability of the oppressed to be loving and just when they gain power, fail to learn the skills of accountability, empathy, and self-restraint (which a program like Sinclair’s Manalive teaches to highly competitive men).Combining thorough personal accountability with an understanding of the ways one’s environment has molded one is a complex task, not easily assimilated into some radicals’ worldviews. But that may change.Prison abolitionists argue that our current prison system is unreformable. Critical Resistance, a national grassroots group seeking to dismantle the prison-industrial complex, writes:Groups like these that see the restorative justice movement as already too fatally implicated in the criminal justice system (and unrealistic in its idea that there was anything good to be restored in the first place) tend instead to rally around the idea of “transformative justice.”Unlike restorative justice projects, which are often related in some way to the criminal justice system, either as an intervention meant to prevent incarceration or as an effort partly within the prisons to promote healing of offenders and victims, transformative justice projects tend to focus on creating a community-based system wholly outside the prison and courts system, thereby resonating more strongly with the prison abolitionist movement.Each side in this debate can push the other’s buttons. Failure to be sufficiently adversarial toward the criminal injustice system can look unconscionable to transformative justice activists. The use of more adversarial language and practices (e.g., in transformative justice, survivors making demands on those who have harmed them) and a perceived excess of theory over empathic practice can make restorative justice people doubt how transformative these other folks really are.But as Bench Ansfield and Timothy Colman’s article on a Philadelphia-based transformative justice project makes clear (page 41), at the heart of both is the development of empathic practices that work, that increase the sense of safety for survivors of violence, and that help those who perpetrated the harm to change. People who line up on both the restorative and transformative sides of the spectrum already meet and talk, and will do this more as their movements grow. Again, the focus on empathic listening will make it more likely that they will hear each other. Insofar as restorative practices actually work, transformative justice projects will adapt and adopt them, and vice versa.To me, both look like unfinished attempts at the same kind of thing, but starting from different positions in society as well as about society. Many restorative justice proponents start as professionals already in the system (the justice system or the school system—see Rita Alfred’s piece on page 48), who try to work it so that programs can get under way. While their methods may be those of reformers, working with district attorneys, within prisons, grade schools, or law schools, they have hugely transformative dreams. To them, the criticism from prison abolitionists may seem understandable but premature. Both movements, if successful, can end with prisons abolished, or reduced to housing only a tiny number of specific cases; one restorative justice lawyer speculated to me that this number might be as small as 2,000 people in the United States but added that the debate was fruitless at this point because it will be a matter of what works and how well we manage to create alternative methods for keeping people safe and transforming violent behavior. The movements are complementary, this viewpoint holds.And it does behoove restorative justice people to think how they would do things if there were no state-violence sanctions at all in the background of their work: If the alternative to a family or community circle were not criminal charges, or if there were no literally for role would there be enough for enough violent offenders to does a community do with those who an offender is in the community and no one is going to the what sanctions of of can be to to the person to a community It certainly may get to sound a But working out how to do this is a that many restorative justice people already we think of as radical on what we think the the of human to be in human nature as for by or is it or racism, or failure to For evangelical Christians, being is the most radical For some left-wing activists, does not sound radical For others it’s the that is the it suggests traditional of victim and offender, even of and when what is is to such notions and to the radical that has the same set of human is different strategies to meet their and to and to actually result in reduced safety and violence (see article on page of this there are and people feel strongly about them. However, in with restorative and transformative justice practitioners on different places on the spectrum, I have to criticize the they all seem their own visions them, they have much to to each other. is entirely within the empathic of these movements, and them from those whether on the Left or the Right, adversarial is different in restorative justice from other organizing. of that movement have their is this growing more becomes clear as soon as you to the They are less likely to theory than they are to you of and they are it is them experiences that they to deeper and the to One central practice is the in which can be heard and no one practitioners have different ways of A may be on the with of the and A or or other words that to the of those present may be A may be each person in a set by the They may start by how they the circle to what it should what they from the others in order to feel safe enough to what kind of respect, they on the circle goes to the it has been from a person who has been on a to the how well the has been or other inherent to that find that the circle structure them to more how it People and then their own of pain and A offender is to find that in the circle to how to the harm he has he can as long as he needs the district a to see how the process it is his to do so. A has already been with the that in the circle will be as should the case go to A was by a up the free A young who two and returns two years to offer because his is and he to make a he to pay the families in for what he and by his to spend the money on for and his to help the of abuse he has this becomes part of the he to criminal practices and of are the of the movement. However, it is not growing because the are and to all but also because they are and can find in juvenile and their is in of and in like reduced These practices do not on but can be so that from within the community and does not have to come from from a the same how much to and is an issue that may become and and is and there be ways of working out who has a debate on the of the versus other terms, it’s worth at September on his is one of the movement’s and leading One of his is to a by who of those who would like to the when restorative practices are not to the criminal justice on that another in the and the difficulty of such issues in the movement, which he started if there might be a strand of in the issues of justice, accountability, are issues not in of over too find a to the Christian movements that in I has been more with belief than most but it has always had that were most with behavioral emotional or may be of concern to such has been a likely of such movements, and so has resistance among and white proponents to questioning their own But in other such movements, love with the and the we saw in has people into for including and building the to me that restorative practices are a version of these movements of personal this movement is in and to be to people of all and but it is as as its practitioners it to radical of empathic listening and makes it with or a with any kind of version of personal is also much more strongly to of social racism, and inherited If the movement to like Fania who for in the movement to themselves more in the and in the ways the criminal justice system is as a new then we will start to have the kind of of personal change with change that many of us have been for years is the only way a society can be

The enactment of Law Number 1 of 2023 concerning the National Criminal Code (KUHP) marks a historic moment in Indonesian criminal law politics. This regulation represents a "decolonial" effort to replace the Dutch-inherited Criminal Code (Wetboek van Strafrecht) with a criminal law system rooted in the Pancasila philosophy and Indonesian values. The most fundamental change lies in the shift in the sentencing paradigm, from one originally oriented towards retributive justice (retribution) to an approach that balances corrective, rehabilitative, and restorative justice. This new approach aims to redefine the relationship between the state, perpetrators, and victims, with a focus on recovery. This study aims to analyze the new direction of Indonesian criminal law politics following the enactment of the National Criminal Code, conceptually comparing the principles of retributive justice in the old Criminal Code with the restorative justice approach in the new Criminal Code, and identifying implementation challenges in this transitional sentencing paradigm. This study uses a normative juridical method. Using a legislative and historical approach, a comparative analysis of the philosophy, principles, and norms of punishment contained in the old Criminal Code and Law No. 1 of 2023 was conducted to map the transformation of criminal law policy. It was found that the National Criminal Code explicitly abandons the philosophy of lex talionis and adopts a more humanistic goal of punishment, reflected in the criminal provisions and actions. Restorative justice is positioned as a complement to the conventional justice system, emphasizing the restoration of victims' losses and the social reintegration of perpetrators, rather than as a complete substitute for retributive justice. This creates a constructive tension, requiring law enforcement officials to make contextual choices between punitive and restorative approaches, rather than adopting a single approach. The greatest challenge lies not in the legal text, but in changing the culture and paradigm of law enforcement officials who have long been accustomed to a retributive system. The National Criminal Code inaugurates a more progressive criminal law policy by placing restorative justice as one of its main pillars. However, its successful implementation depends heavily on cultural transformation within law enforcement. It is recommended that the government prioritize a massive, ongoing socialization and training program for judges, prosecutors, and police to internalize this new paradigm, and encourage legal education institutions to reform their curricula.

The legal profession is presently in an embattled position concerning matters of ethics and professional responsibility.It has been the target of stinging criticism from the President of the United States,' the Chief Justice of the United States, 2 and others.Reliable surveys indicate that the profession stands at an appallingly low level of public esteem. 3Some of the reasons for this poor reputation can be traced to a public perception of the profession as greedy and self-serving.Many of the policies of the profession that have engendered this response are regulated by the present Code of Professional Responsibility as it is articulated and interpreted by the American Bar Association.The Code of Professional Responsibility addresses the full spectrum of professional activities that the practicing bar engages in and lays down specific rules for dealing with ethical matters.This discussion will focus on three of the more troublesome and controversial areas of legal ethics and professional responsibility relating to the lawyer's obligations to his client: preserving confidences of individual and organizational clients, making disclosures to the relevant tribunal

This paper examines the comparative effectiveness of restorative and punitive justice models in addressing crime and reducing recidivism, particularly in the Indian context. Restorative justice emphasizes healing, accountability, and community involvement, using practices like victim-offender mediation and community service to repair harm and reintegrate offenders. In contrast, punitive justice focuses on punishment and deterrence through incarceration and legal penalties. Data and studies suggest that restorative approaches, especially for juvenile and minor offenses, lead to lower recidivism rates, higher victim satisfaction, and reduced pressure on courts and prisons. However, restorative justice is not suitable for all crimes and requires voluntary participation and institutional support. Punitive justice, while essential for serious crimes, often fails to address root causes or rehabilitate offenders. The paper concludes by advocating for a hybrid justice model in India, blending restorative methods within the existing punitive framework to create a more humane, cost-effective, and impactful justice system.

Restorative juvenile justice

The author examines in this article the professional legal ethics in the United States, more commonly known as “professional responsibility”, as a subject to an unusual pattern of “codification”. Detailed rules historically originated with the legal profession itself, initially in legal doctrine and then a Code of Ethics published in 1887 by the Alabama State Bar Association. Whatever borrowing occurred among states when introducing their own “codes of ethics”, the Alabama model was drawn upon when, in 1908, the American Bar Association approved “32 Canons of Professional Ethics”. The sources of law regulating the professional conduct of lawyers in the United States are several. The legal ethics within state courts is regulated by the courts, the legislative (or parliamentary) organ, and the Bar of each state. Professional responsibility, in the spirit of David Hoffman, has become an integral part of legal education and licensing. Law students take a compulsory course in professional responsibility and are required to pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination administered nationally in the United States by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. The author concludes, that legal ethics has been an integral part of American legal education since the early nineteenth century. In the twentieth century the legal profession itself introduced “private” canons of ethics which were then accepted by the highest courts in virtually all states as rules of professional conduct binding upon all members of the Bar. It remains a distinctive element of the American legal system that binding rules of professional conduct are formed mostly by the courts, and not by the legislature. These rules are initially “codified” by a voluntary non-State organization, adopted by the courts, and then applied by the courts in cases which ultimately become components of the law of precedent; that is, a separate and distinct source of law.

The criminal justice system has an orientation to involve various components to prevent the occurrence of criminal acts. In the practice of criminal law, the idea of ​​restorative justice has emerged in the practice of law in Indonesia. This study aims to initiate the regulation of restorative justice in the Criminal Procedure Code as part of the criminal justice system's development. This research is normative legal research oriented to the study and analysis of positive law. This study examines the legal issue, namely the legal vacuum in the regulation of restorative justice in the Criminal Procedure Code. The study results confirm that restorative justice is part of the criminal justice system, especially in the aspect of the criminal justice system process, which effectively and efficiently strengthens the orientation of the legal process effectively and efficiently in criminal law enforcement. In this context, restorative justice is part of the development of legal theory and practice and an effort to revive the value of local wisdom in Indonesian criminal law. The Ius constituendum or future arrangements related to restorative justice in the Criminal Procedure Code need to be carried out so that the Criminal Procedure Code can guide the implementation of formal law in Indonesia that has Indonesian aspirations, especially with the application of restorative justice in practice as well as the pouring of restorative justice in the Criminal Procedure Code which is essential to ensure legal certainty as well as provide a dimension of harmony for restorative justice arrangements

Restorative justice concept may refer to an alternative process for solving disputes including criminal law violation has been well known in Indonesia. The Act Number 11, 2012 on Juvenile Justice System has acknowledged restorative justice approach as a part of criminal justice system in dealing with a child in conflict with the law. It has become an essential provision in the Act as it provides option for law enforcers to avoid punishing juvenile offenders through traditional criminal approach. This research aims to examine restorative justice for juvenile offenders in Indonesia based on the Juvenile Justice System Act Number 11, 2012 as a form of alternative dispute resolution for juvenile crimes and other related laws and to provide a brief of the implementation of restorative justice in Indonesia that is integrally enforced in Indonesian criminal justice system dealing with a child in conflict with the law. It divides the discussion into two parts restorative justice in the juvenile justice system act 2012 and the implementation of restorative juvenile justice in Indonesia. In order to response to these research aims, this paper employs doctrinal legal research.

The child is the future and the next generation of the ideals of the nation, therefore the best interests of the child must be the responsibility of all parties. The Including the interests of children who are faced with the law. In the Criminal Justice System Law No. 11 of 2012 recognizes Justice's restorative approach in the settlement of child criminal cases. Restorative justice approach is intended to prevent children from the impression of criminal and psychological trauma due to the judicial process and also besides that restorative justice approach is an effort to restore the balance between the perpetrator and the victim, as well as the perpetrator with the community to the original state. One of the most important approaches to restorative justice is the traditional approach and local wisdom. Customary law and local wisdom should be an alternative solution in the realization of restorative justice. Therefore this paper intends to examine the legitimacy of customary law in the legal system in Indonesia and the extent to which it exists within the Criminal Justice System law. The method used in this paper is the normative approach. Based on the results of the study it was found that restorative justice through indigenous approaches and local wisdom has not been seriously accommodated in the Criminal Justice System Law. Customary law in the form of fulfillment of customary obligations is only considered as an additional criminal. The additional criminal principle is not independently dependent on the principal penalty. Should the state seriously apply the principle of restorative justice in the settlement of child criminal cases, the customary approach should be regarded as one of the main forms of the crime.

While distributive justice and procedural justice have received substantial attention from energy scholars, recent work identifies restorative justice as an underdeveloped component of the energy justice framework. As conceived in the context of criminal law, restorative justice seeks to more precisely account for harms and obligations that arise from wrongdoing, and to widen the circle of participation in repairing those harms. Restorative environmental justice wields these principles to advance the environmental justice framework beyond a tight focus on disparate environmental and health impacts. Restorative energy justice faces the challenge of deploying this restorative approach in an energy landscape that is often tightly focused on technology choices and business concerns.In Hawai‘i, we find an opportunity to operationalize the concept of restorative energy justice. The origin of Hawai‘i’s regulated electricity industry is indelibly intertwined with the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. By incorporating a restorative approach that more fully considers the implications of those roots, energy regulators can better account for the future costs and benefits associated with Hawai‘i’s effort to decarbonize its electricity system. In turn, this improved accounting can reduce the risk that the urgency of decarbonization will be placed in a false tension with the imperative of justice.

Purpose– The purpose of this position paper is to assess the contribution of restorative justice to the desistance paradigm with a particular focus upon the psychology of these approaches.Design/methodology/approach– Risk, need and responsivity approaches to offender intervention are discussed and compared with the desistance paradigm. An integrative approach of the two methods is proposed and the value of desistance approaches is highlighted in understanding processes of change and how restorative justice approaches can best contribute.Findings– Discussion of desistance theory and the consideration of primary, secondary and tertiary desistance stages leads to the exploration of interplays in social and the human capital and the contribution of restorative justice to the desistance process. A desistance process that belongs to the desister is proposed to be supported by restorative justice processes.Practical implications– Conceptualising the interplay of human and social capital within primary, secondary and tertiary desistance is suggested improve the responsivity of restorative processes, promote desistance, reduce recidivism and better support children’s rights. It provides justification to extend restorative approaches to 18-24-year-old young adults and to different settings. Restorative justice evaluation should consider the process of restorative justice and its outcome measurement could better consider desistance stages.Originality/value– The position paper outlines the unique contribution that restorative justice approaches can make in supporting desistance. It outlines a relevant conceptualisation of desistance to advance knowledge through an improved understanding of process to improve responsivity of restorative approaches and of evaluation practice.

Although restorative justice is probably one of the most talked about topics in contemporary criminology, little has been written about how community involvement in restorative justice translates into practice. While advocates have presented the community as an essential pillar of restorative justice, the rationale for why and how this is the case remains underdeveloped and largely unchallenged. This book offers an empirical and theoretical explanation of what ‘community involvement’ means and what work it does in restorative justice. Drawing on an empirical case study and the wider sociological literature, The Role of Community in Restorative Justice examines the involvement of the community in one selected practice of restorative justice and also considers the implications of the English and Welsh experience for development of a more coherent framework for operationalizing community involvement in restorative justice practices. It is argued that restorative justice programmes need to start from a more concrete and up-to-date notion of community. While operationalizing community involvement, they need to acknowledge, all at once: the importance of place; the importance of family links, friendship and other social ties; and the importance of similar social traits and identities. This book is essential reading for students, researchers and academics in the fields of criminology, criminal justice, sociology, community studies, policy studies, social policy and socio-legal studies. This book will also be valuable reading for a variety of practitioners and policymakers, particularly working with restorative justice and youth justice.