I think you will best appreciate the relevance of punishment to restoration in the context of serious crime. Do you think RJ can ever apply to serious crime such as homicide, rape and armed robbery? Can it apply to child abuse or large-scale toxic waste dumping?

If so, do you believe that restoration can be achieved in these cases if the offender receives no punishment at all?

Of course there are many , many cases in which punishment is neither necessary nor desirable – but ask yourself, are there any cases in which a deserved punishment is both necessary and just?

My argument is simple: if rj, with all its great potential for healing, is ever to apply to these serious cases, we must drop an ideological insistence on rejecting the use of punishment. Of course there must be punishment for serious, violent crime. If we refuse to face this issue with candor, we lose the opportunity for rj to become a significant force for change throughout our cj system.

If you are interested in pursuing this, I would love you to read my book Crime, Punishment and Restorative Justice. In it, I try to put the punishment debate into perspective: the goal of the criminal justice system should not be punishment! The overarching goal should be the restoration of trust in the offender and in society, and the offender’s voluntary submission to a punishment which he himself regards as deserved is merely one means, among many others, of regaining the trust that he destroyed by the commission of a crime.

First thing that comes to my mind from reading the last part of Mr. London’s paragraph is that RJ is not a fixed paradigm. The RJ paradigm is values based. But RJ doesn’t set the values or the needs of participants, so is not a package of ideas or even of values that need to be applied for every particular case. The individuals participant defines the values and needs and I do not how this could happen fully in a court of law. Secondly, RJ is about preparation, preparation, preparation. How this could happen in the court of law? RJ is creative and adaptable to circunstances and people availability? How can judges, magisters, district attorneys, etc., apply RJ processes that have the person hurting at the center?

Having said that, the RJ paradigm have applications inside the criminal justice system, and outside, and even in spaces of collaboration of inside and outside the system.

RJ does not propose the dismanteling of the traditional system. As RJ is a voluntary process, there may be a need to always keep the traditional system for those who are not ready for RJ.

The effects of RJ are different in every application.

Within the system, RJ helps the CJS to become more humane. However, because the CJS works under the paradigm of punishment, if we apply RJ systematically, will it not we end up only making punishment more humane?

I tend to believe that is outside the system or in proper collaboration with the CJS that RJ could happen at its best expression.