Need For Peace

1143 Words5 Pages
Need for Peace In A country where violence is everywhere we turn and our prisons have a high turn out rate. Fifty-six percent of violent criminals become repeat offenders(Organized Crime Digest 9/30/06). Our current justice system is not helping nor educating these individuals to understand the severity of their actions, they need rehabilitation. In this day and age we have a need and desire for an alternative way to restore the peace in our communities. Nothing else has worked. In the essay Beyond good and Evil: Marshall Rosenberg on Creating A Nonviolent World, Marshall Rosenberg states, “we are getting to the point where our best protection is to communicate with the people we are most afraid of. Nothing else will work.” I strongly agree with Rosenberg on nonviolent communication. We are truly at the point where it is in the best interest of all people to have “restorative justice” rather than retributive justice for violent offenders. Rosenberg said that “Restorative justice is based on the question: How do we restore peace? In other words, how do we restore a state in which people care about one another’s wellbeing?” I also believe that it is a better outcome for all involved in a situation if restorative justice is done. The victim also has a better outcome knowing that peace has been restored within that violent offender and he will be less likely to harm another person. Restorative justice has four steps; One is for the victim to express what it is they want the perpetrator to understand. Two is for the perpetrator to deal with his feelings and express what they are. Next the victim usually wants to know what was going on in this person that made him commit this crime. The last step is to ask the victim if there is any thing else they would like the perpetrator to do to get the peace restored. They may ask for medical bills paid or
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