범죄피해자와 회복적 사법의 모델

A Study of Criminal Victims and Restorative Justice

Restorative justice is defined as a legal process in which instead of relying on the state's intervention to punish offenders unilaterally, victims and other community members are involved in addressing legal cases. In other words, restorative justice doesn't aim at simply punishing criminals, but attempts to engage communities and victims so that they can arrive at reconciliations with offenders by means of dialogues and negotiations. The ultimate goal of restorative justice is to protect criminal victims, even though it may give protection to offender themselves. There are two major frameworks for restorative justice: Purist Model and Maximalist Model. The purist model encourages voluntary participation of the parties involved and communities, while the maximalist model stipulates mandatory participations and does not necessarily involve communities. Three major enforcement models have been suggested for restorative justice: Victim-Offender mediation program : (VOMP), Family Group Conferencing, and Circles model. Most commonly adopted is Victim-Offender mediation program (VOMP), which may be considered to be the most ideal, even though there's some dispute over who should be the arbitrator. In the 21st century there has been an increasing agreement in international communities that it may not be so idealistic to settle crimes merely by relying on the punishment of offenders. It seems a little bit late, but Korean criminal procedures should also accommodate restorative justice in order to include victims as active parties in the legal system and to settle criminal cases through dialogues and compromises between offenders, victims and arbitrators.