Origin of the system:

Restorative Justice is to provide people with a wide range of opportunities for dialogue and problem solving for victims, their families, and even members or representatives of the community who are most directly affected by the crime. People recognize the impact of their offenses and are directly responsible for their actions, and repair the emotional trauma of the victim and reduce the actual damage. Compared with the traditional criminal justice system centered on punishment, the focus of restorative justice is not on punishment or retaliation, but on how the government heals wounds, restores balance, and restores broken relationships after crimes occur. The new meaning of justice is based on seeking truth, apology, comfort, responsibility and recovery.

In order to gradually promote restorative justice and establish a people-oriented and flexible judicial system, the Ministry of Justice has approved the "Procedure of the Ministry of Justice to Promote Restorative Justice-Constructing Dialogue Mechanisms and Repairing Crime Injury Plans" in July 1998. In the early days, the District Prosecutors Office of Banqiao, Shilin, Yilan, Miaoli, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, and Penghu were selected to handle the trial scheme from September 1, 1999. A follow-up investigation by the pilot the District Prosecutors Offices found that most of the victims "feel that justice has been achieved", and most of the perpetrators agreed that "they will make every effort to prevent such cases from happening again", which shows the effective function of restorative justice. The results will serve as a reference for the future construction of a execution model for restorative justice.

Purpose:

(1) Assist victims, perpetrators, and the families and communities (groups) of both parties to have a full dialogue, so that the parties have the opportunity to state each other, clarify the facts of the case, listen to each other's feelings, ask questions about crimes and get answers.

(2) Let the perpetrators recognize their mistakes, have the opportunity to take the initiative to sincerely apologize to the victims, their families and communities (groups) and take responsibility for compensation, and experience positive changes in self-awareness and emotions to improve themselves, their families, and their victims, and community (group) to help them return to society.

(3) Improve the self-confidence and motivation of the perpetrator to repair the relationship with the victim, assist him to initiate the reintegration and reconstruction mechanism, and reduce his chance of re-offending.

(4) Respect the victim's right to have a fair voice in the crime handling process, and give the victim an opportunity to describe the experience of the crime process, the victim's feelings and directly ask the victim, and express their needs and participate in the decision process.

(5) Through the dialogue process, the victim can heal the pain and regain the feeling that he or she still has the ability to master his/her own life, and can further understand the perpetrator, and reduce the negative emotions caused by the perpetrator.

(6) Provide a non-hostile, non-threatening and secure environment, so that victims, perpetrators, and communities (groups) can fully express their interests and needs, and obtain a consensus and agreement to terminate the case, in order to achieve emotional repair and reduce the actual damage.