Restorative Justice in New Zealand: Crime Victims Top Priority
New developments in New Zealand show the country’s strong commitment to crime victims through restorative justice policies. RJI advocates for a victim’s right to restorative justice. We believe that each crime victim should have the option to participate in restorative justice. Victims must know restorative justice is available to them. Offenders as well must be prepared to meet their victims if the victim chooses.
The appropriate infrastructure must be in place to allow restorative justice to be utilized which means that funding must be invested to make it happen. Evidence based research shows that not only are crime victims more satisfied with the results of participating in restorative justice, versus their views of the traditional, current justice system, but offenders take responsibility for their crimes which leads to a reduction in re-offending in the future.
We are pleased to see the following article in waateanews.com.
http://www.waateanews.com/Waatea+News.html?story_id=ODU1NQ==&v=78