By: KIM, Eun Kyeong
I. Introduction
In recent years, the possibilities and potential of adopting restorative justice have been under active discussion. Restorative justice proposes a novel perspective toward the concept of justice. In other words, justice, in this context, cannot be realized simply by punishing criminals. Rather, it can only be realized when the wounds caused by crime are cured, and when a true reconciliation between offender and victim is made. In this aspect, restorative justice puts a strong emphasis on problem solving through conversation between the offender and the victim. Restorative justice works to enable those affected by a crime, the offender, the victim, their families as well as the representatives of local communities, to share the victim's suffering, by providing them chances to communicate and interact for a solution in a safe place. The numbers from evaluation data tell us that such a process of mutual conversation does indeed have positive effects in dropping the recidivism rate and in accelerating the recovery rate by helping the offender to realize how his criminal deed actually affected the life of the victim while subsidizing the victim to overcome his anger and fear towards the offender and his deed. Thereby it is a dominant trend in Western societies to actively adopt restorative justice into the current criminal justice system, which is at the same time a strong advice from the UN.
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