Summary
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Walgrave observes that many equate mediation and restorative justice. He counters by contending that restorative justice is and should be a much wider concept. Community service offers a necessary basic complement to victim-oriented aspects of restorative justice processes. Walgrave therefore explores the need for restorative justice to be more than a form of diversion – in other words, it should be a fully-fledged alternative to rehabilitative and retributive juvenile systems. Toward this end, restorative justice will have to account for the community as a third party vital to adequate reckoning with crime. In particular, Walgrave discusses “public losses� incurred by communities through crime. Community service can restore “public losses.� With all of this in mind, Walgrave, while acknowledging potential issues and problems (e.g., coercion, legal safeguards, proportionality) in community service and restorative processes in general, contends for a maximalist perspective where restorative justice aims for thorough reform and transformation of the criminal justice system.
