Restorative Justice In The Criminal Justice System

In today’s criminal justice system, jails and prisons are becoming more overcrowded due to the recent increase in crime rates. Many criminal justice agencies have recently found a new method of punishment that can be used deter people from committing criminal actions and further prevent overcrowding the prisons. This new method of punishment is known as restorative justice. This new method of punishment focuses on having the offender restore the losses of both their victim and their community in lieu of being incarcerated (“Restorative Justice”, n.d.). One example of a restorative justice program in the state of Arizona is the Arizona Department of Juvenile Correction's Juvenile Intensive Probation Supervision program.
The Juvenile Intensive Probation Supervision program is designed to steer
First off, this program has created a financial increase towards the taxpayers. Because this program does not require any confinement, taxpayers end up saving money that would have gone towards buildings, food, water, and beds (Martian, 2000). In fact, according to Keith Martin, a recent audit showed that the taxpayers end up saving at least $5 million per year since the program costs only about $3,400 per juvenile offender instead of $45,000 per year to incarcerate a juvenile offender in a juvenile detention center (2000). Another benefit to this program is that the potential outcome of the associated training and work that the offender receives should deter the juvenile offender from living a life of crime. Because the program aims hold the juvenile offender accountable for their actions, it will become highly unlikely that the juvenile offender will want to re-offend simply because they do not want to be forced to do community service or pay for someone else’s loss ever