Leverton, Reed. “Today you will be with me in paradise.” – The Case for Consideration of Restorative Justice as a Component of Christian Doctrine.

The scope of this essay is limited to a discussion of Restorative Justice as a different way of looking at the traditional view of criminal justice, as well as how and why its fundamental goals of encounter, amends, reintegration and inclusion combine to make it far more compatible with Christian doctrine than our present approach to crime and its consequences. The paper is conceptual in nature, and due to space limitations does not address specific procedures or modalities, nor does it provide a detailed comparison of the prevalent theories as to how criminal behavior should be addressed. Finally, the fact that it is written from a Christian viewpoint is in no way intended to be exclusionary; i.e., Restorative Justice has application beyond Judeo-Christian tradition;3 this paper just happens to be written from that perspective.

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