ASSIGNMENT 3

PEN3701
560463

QUESTION 1
Restorative justice is an approach to justice where one of the responses to a crime
is to organize a meeting between the victim and the offender, sometimes with
representatives of the wider community. Is also an approach to justice that seeks to
repair harm by providing an opportunity for those harmed and those who take
responsibility for the harm to communicate about and address their needs in the
aftermath of a crime. A restorative justice program aims to get offenders to take
responsibility for their actions, to understand the harm they have caused, to give
them an opportunity to redeem themselves and to discourage them from causing
further harm.
QUESTION 2
• Addressing offences committed and assisting the offender to take responsibility
for such offence, which may include restoration of relations with victims where
appropriate.
• Addressing offences suffered and assisting the victim to reach a stage of
forgiveness.
• Addressing anti-social addictions and anti-social habits and therefore
promote rational thinking, good decision making and positive behaviour.
• Promoting the restoration of the offender as a member of the family.
• Promoting the restoration of communities and community institutions and good
governance and enhanced social cohesion.
• All human beings, including offenders, have dignity and worth
• The focus is on problem-solving, and the healing of relationships with the
community.
• Enabling offenders to make amends with their victims and community.
• Increasing the competencies of offenders
• Protecting the public through processes in which individual victims, the
community and offenders are all active participants.

QUESTION 3
Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 11 of the White Paper on Corrections (2005) make provision for
the holistic approach to rehabilitation of offenders in correctional facilities with the
assistance of social institutions to, among others, promote regeneration of moral
values, restoration of relationships and successful reintegration.
Chapter 3 Correction is a societal responsibility
Chapter 3 deals with the community’s responsibility regarding offender treatment.
This implies that aspects such as rehabilitation are not purely a correctional function,
but also involve the community in treatment programmes.
Chapter 4 Objectives of the South African correctional system
Chapter 4 clearly shows that the Department Correctional Services not only deals with
safe custody, but also focuses specifically on rehabilitation and correcting of offending
behaviour.
Chapter 5 South Africa’s approach to correctional management
Chapter 5 shifts the emphasis to recovery or restoration in terms of victim experience
and involvement once again, a fulfilment of the principles underlying retribution. By
making amends for the deed, order replaces the chaos, which then leads to meaningful
reintegration. This chapter goes further and refers to the specific rights of
offenders. This is the one aspect that infuriates the community, which would prefer to
believe that offenders have no rights.
Chapter 11 Special categories of offenders
Chapter 11 deals with the sensitive subject of the treatment of vulnerable offenders,
also known as special categories of offenders. Here, we are referring specifically to
children and women being detained in correctional centres. Both groups are
internationally regarded as unique and must receive special protection and empathy.

QUESTION 4
Victim empowerment is an approach to facilitating access to a range of services for all
people who have individually or collectively suffered harm, trauma and material loss
through violence, crime, natural disaster, human accident and through socio-economic
conditions. Victim empowerment aims to restore the loss or damage caused by criminal
acts and their consequences through a variety of actions intended to empower the
victim to deal with the consequences of the event, to leave it behind and suffer no
further loss or damage. It is premised upon the belief that individuals, families, and
communities have the right to privacy, safety and human dignity, and that victims
should play a more central role in the criminal justice process. Empowerment may be
defined as having control, having a say, being listened to, being recognised and
respected as an individual and having the choices one makes respected by others.

QUESTION 5
The role of victims
Restorative justice allows the voices of victims to be heard. Crime victims are given
more chances to regain their personal power. Restorative justice gives victims more
opportunities to be involved to decide how their needs can best be met. Victim
involvement may include receipt of information, dialogue with the offender, resolution
of conflict with the offender, restitution, reduction of fear, heightened sense of safety,
partial ownership of the process, resolving the experience, and renewal of hope.
The role of offenders
A restorative justice process encourages offenders to accept their responsibilities
towards individual victims and the community. Such opportunities may include defining
their obligations, participating in safe, mediated face-to-face encounters with victims,
understanding the impact of their own actions, providing restitution, identifying their
needs, having partial ownership of the process, repairing the harm they have caused to
victims and community and renewing hope.
The role of communities
The justice process belongs to the community, by making resources available to
support both victim and offender. Communities are involved in family group
conferencing and victim-offender mediation, as family members and supporters of
victims and offenders. The community is recognised as an important role player not
only in crime prevention, but also in decision making regarding sanctions for offending
behaviour. The community needs to take up its responsibility to ensure that restorative
justice agreements are honoured and that conditions are conducive for the offender to
repair the harm. Restorative justice processes have the potential to provide the
community with an opportunity to articulate its values and expectations, to understand
the underlying causes of crime and to determine what can be done to repair the
damage caused. The entire community is responsible for supporting and assisting
victims, holding offenders accountable and helping offenders to make amends . It is
therefore clear that the community must make a tangible contribution to the healing
process. In doing so, it could contribute to community well-being and potentially reduce
future crimes.

QUESTIONS 6
The Directorate Correctional Programmes of the Department of Correctional Services is
responsible for developing correctional programmes aimed at correcting offending.
Therefore, this directorate identified the need for offenders to be orientated on the
concept and principles of restorative justice. Subsequently, the directorate developed a
compulsory Restorative Justice Orientation Programme to form part of an offender’s
correctional sentence plan. The main objective of this programme is to orientate
offenders in respect of restorative justice and to prepare them for further intervention
through restorative justice programmes such as victim-offender dialogue and victim-
offender .This should be based on the facilitator’s assessment whether the offender has
shown insight into the effects of the crime committed after he or she completed the
compulsory orientation programme. Some of the outcomes of this programme are that
offenders take responsibility for their crime, that they be accountable for their actions
and that offenders are willing and able to restore the harm that they have caused as a
result of their crime. Restorative justice l the road to healing. The mediator merely
facilitates the discussion which encourages the offender to learn about the crime's
impact and to take responsibility for harm caused by the offence. The process allows
the victim and offender the opportunity to develop a plan that addresses the harm.
At the end of the programme offenders are expected to have been provided with an
understanding of the,
• Basic concepts in restorative justice.
• Factors that lead to crime and how to deal with them.
• Importance of changing offending behavioural patterns.
• Concept of restorative justice in general and within the context of the Department
of Correctional Services.
• Relationship between restorative justice, rehabilitation and reintegration.
• Various programmes of restorative justice and their benefits.