REIMAGINING JUSTICE: INNOTATIVE APPROACHES TO HEALING HARM

Restorative justice represents a profound shift in how justice is understood and practiced. Rather than centering on rule-breaking and punishment, it focuses on harm, relationships, and repair. Justice becomes less about retribution and more about restoring balance, dignity, and connection among harmed parties, responsible parties and the wider community.  Responsible parties are not reduced to their crimes, and harmed parties are not defined solely by the crime they endured. Instead, both are seen as human beings capable of accountability, healing, and change. It is important, at every level, to “equate safety with well-resourced and cared for communities that can thrive, repair, and heal.” (1) 

Restorative justice relies not only on legal principles but also on storytelling, empathy, and emotional engagement. By humanizing those involved in conflict, it opens the possibility of accountability without humiliation. Importantly, restorative justice understands conflict not as something to be erased but as something to be transformed. Rather than aiming for a resolution, it reframes conflict as a potential for growth. 

Restorative justice calls for active engagement rather than passive tolerance, insisting on mutual recognition. It “emphasizes on processes that are flexible, collaborative and inclusive; and outcomes that are mutually agreed upon rather than externally imposed” (2). In doing so, it affirms that durable peace and genuine justice are inseparable: peace is not merely the absence of tension, but the presence of just and repaired relationships. 

Here are CYS, we work with every child to identify their unique and individual needs to ensure real accountability, healing, and repair is achieved for both the harmed party and the responsible party.