Five years ago, Tallahassee started out with a small program called the Neighborhood Justice Center.  This center has grown phenomenally since 1995.

The Justice Center now offers school programs, mediation and mediation referrals, free legal advice clinics, a family law assistance program, study circles and race relations dialogues, legal seminars and a restorative justice program.  The Center is an invaluable community resource.

A great part of its value lies in its reliance on the concept of restorative rather than retributive justice.  Retributive justice characterizes the criminal justice system we are familiar with - a system based on establishing guilt and administering punishment. Restorative justice, on the other hand, seeks to determine harm and work out how that harm can in some way be repaired.  

Obviously, from this description it is easy to see that while the retributive system focuses on the offender, the restorative system includes the victim in the resolution of the problem.  One of the greatest criticisms of the traditional criminal justice system from victims' rights groups has been that it virtually ignores the victim's needs and interests.

Retributive justice views crime as violating the state and its laws. Restorative justice views crime as violating people and relationships. Retributive justice focuses on establishing guilt.  Restorative justice aims to identify needs and obligations.  Retributive justice metes out doses of pain to the guilty.  Restorative justice attempts to make things right again as far as that is possible.

In the retributive system, justice is sought through a conflict between adversaries (lawyers in the court room).  Restorative justice is conducted through dialogue, mutual agreement, and an exchange of information.  In a courtroom, the offender is pitted against the state. In a restorative justice setting, both the victim and the offender have central roles.  

Rules and intentions outweigh outcomes in the retributive system, and one side wins and the other loses.  In the restorative system, responsibilities are judged and assumed, needs are met and healing of individuals and relationships is encouraged.  This makes possible a win-win outcome.

Restorative justice focuses on the accountability of the offender.  The wrongs committed create liabilities and obligations to the harmed, and those liabilities and obligations can only be removed and fulfilled by action on the part of the offender to make it up to the harmed in some way worked out with the person or persons harmed.

Now, the Justice Center works primarily with juveniles and youthful offenders who have committed minor crimes, but even so, this method of dealing with a certain portion of criminal behavior can of great benefit to the offender and to the victim.