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Summary
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New Zealand's Sentencing Act of 2002 incorporated restorative justice language in its sentencing provisions. Judges are now required to consider the results of a restorative process in sentencing decisions. Judge Stan A. Thorburn of the District Court in Auckland recently applied these provisions to a case of aggravated robbery. Under existing case law, the sentence for such a crime would be 4 years in prison. However, the victims and offenders had met together in a conference arranged and facilitated by a court-affiliated restorative justice program. In his sentencing notes recorded below, Judge Thorburn considers the legal relevance of the successful outcome of this conference in imposing sentence under the 2002 Act.
Link: www.restorativejustice.org/editions/2004/October/sentencing
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