Restorative Justice

Cyber Victimisation, Restorative Justice and Victim-Offender Panels

“…Allowing victims to voice out what they have gone through, during and after the offense, as well as letting offenders understand the harm caused and express remorse for their acts, is fundamental in restorative justice (Brewer et al, 2019).…”

“…Restorative justice is a concept that looks at the outcome of a transgression or a crime taking the victim, the offender and the community into consideration (Wenzel et al, 2008). It is a traditional relationship-based justice model that focuses on the victim as well as on the offender; however, restorative justice is more victim oriented than traditional criminal proceedings (Brewer et al, 2019). The objective of restorative justice is to find ways to repair the harm caused by a certain offence.…”

“…In the context of cybercrime, crime control and resolution is not simple. Furthermore, the application of restorative justice in this area is speculative (Brewer et al, 2019;Button et al, 2015;Levi et al, 2015). However, there is some adaption of restorative justice in the area of cybercrime, notably in the context of young offenders and getting them to understand the impact of their actions on victims (Levi et al, 2015).…”

“…Restorative justice models traditionally refer to victim-offender mediation, family group conferencing and circle sentencing (Brewer et al, 2019). However, other conferences also aim at restoring the victim, the offender and the communities, such as victim offender panels that bring together victims and offenders of similar crimes but not the exact victim and his/her offender (Van Ness & Strong, 2015).…”

“…Restorative justice and its practices are often viewed as an addendum to the formal criminal justice system, which provides an alternative crime response and is rarely visible in the formal administration of justice. However, restorative justice models might be either alternative or cumulative to the criminal justice (Brewer et al, 2019). This paper advocates that restorative justice in the context of cybercrime is complementary to the criminal justice and, thus, should not be viewed as a replacement of the existing justice model.…”