Rehabilitation in Restorative Justice

Respond to at least two colleagues:

Choose a response that is different from your own.

Explain how your colleague’s position has changed your perception or understanding.

1st Reply

B

In restorative justice, rehabilitation is major ideology and tool that can be used. In certain situational crimes, such as drug related, many restorative justice programs include and encourage offenders to participate in rehabilitation. In the state of Maryland, many rehab opportunities are available for all types of offenders in hopes to achieve the main goal of restorative justice, "Our flagship restorative justice program, Public Safety Works, provides employment skills as well as an opportunity for offenders to give back to the community they have harmed - a powerful and significant tool of rehabilitation" (DPSCS, 2022).

A common rehabilitation program used with bot juveniles and adult crimes is victim offender education groups. With this rehab program, a group of victims of a crime take part in a group therapy-like meeting with the offender. The main purpose is to try and mend the damage done by the offender towards the community and the victim. "The Victim Offender Education Group (VOEG) program supports incarcerated individuals in the process of understanding and developing insight into the underlying circumstances of their lives and the choices that led them to prison. The process utilizes a Restorative Justice philosophy to help individuals to address memories and feelings connected to traumatic and unresolved events in their lives in an effort to integrate these experiences into their lives and experience a renewed sense of wholeness, authenticity, emotional well being, and positive behavior" (Insight Prison Project).

Some issues or possible factors that could derail some of the rehab programs is the attitude's and mindset of the people involved in the programs. To have a successful rehab group study you must have a group of individuals that are willing, able, and have the mindset they they can change and fix the crimes that where committed. A offender has to be willing to change and feel sorrow for there crimes. A victim must be willing to meet with the offender. They must be willing to forgive and be willing to find peace with the offender and the crime that was committed.
Maryland Department of Safety and Correctional Services. (n.d.). RehabilitationLinks to an external site.. 
Insight Prison Project. (n.d.). Victim offender education group (VOEG)Links to an external site.. 
2nd Reply

Collapse Subdiscussion

L

The role of rehabilitation in restorative justice is to alter the way an offender thinks and acts to help prevent them from reoffending. Rehabilitation allows offenders first to identify what is important to them and then find ways to achieve those things positively. Creating an outline and modifying how the offender thinks and behaves will make the offender less likely to re-offend. Rehabilitation helps to shape an offender’s beliefs, knowledge, social support, education, and other areas of value to lessen the potential for recidivism (Kennedy. et al., 2019).

The Victim Offender Education Group, also known as VOEG, supports offenders as they identify the contributing factors to their offenses (Insight Prison Project. n.d.). The VOEG program is designed to help offenders identify and deal with occurrences from childhood through adulthood that may have contributed to the commission of their crime. The program participants are taught accountability, conflict resolution, critical thinking skills, and how to have healthy relationships. Juveniles have a comparable program called Competency Development, which does the same while instilling reciprocity (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention concept. n.d.-c).

Factors that may contribute to or detract from the success of these programs are the participant’s employment status, relationships, support systems, and even educational level/ status (Kennedy. et al.,2019).

Kennedy, J. L., Tuliao, A. P., Flower, K. N., Tibbs, J. J., & McChargue, D. E. (2019). Long-term effectiveness of a brief restorative justice intervention to an external site. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 63(1), 3–17. 
Insight Prison Project. (n.d.). Victim offender education group (VOEG)Links to an external site 

Links to an external site.Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (n.d.-c). Balanced and restorative justice practice: Competency development links to an external site. In Guide for implementing the balanced and restorative justice model.