Many states are stampeding towards legislation to abolish parole, impose mandatory sentences, make prison time "harder," and in general adopt a corrections policy of "locking 'em up and forgetting about 'em." But there is a small yet influential counter-trend based on a philosophy called "restorative justice," which insists we should care a great deal about what happens to criminals after sentencing, and what they do when they are ultimately released back into the law-abiding community.

Restorative justice seeks to restore the community by redressing the damage inflicted by crime. It is a "third way" alternative to the liberal "distributive" theory that focuses on the rights of criminals, and the conservative "retributive" theory that focuses on the rights of government. Like community policing, restorative justice focuses on the safety and quality of life of the community, and on reinforcing its basic values -- not just punishing offenders and then ignoring them before and after they complete their sentences.

In a restorative justice system, criminals are confronted with the damage they do to their victims -- face- to-face, where it's appropriate -- forced to accept personal responsibility for their acts, pushed to make retribution, and monitored before and after their sentences are complete to determine if they are prepared for reintegration into the community. From the perspective of restorative justice, giving jail time to non-violent offenders makes little sense if an alternative is available where offenders can make restitution to their victims. Abolishing parole is a mistake, because it eliminates the one constitutional method of keeping ex-cons under the supervision of the criminal justice system after they are released.

Restorative justice is the basic idea behind many alternative-sentencing and victim- compensation programs around the country. The jurisdiction that has most thoroughly tested the restorative justice concept is Genessee County, New York, where a long- standing experiment dubbed "Genessee Justice" has produced lower crime rates, lower prison populations, increased victim compensation, and increased citizen satisfaction with the criminal justice system. It was profiled this week on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, which featured the case of a repeat drunk- driver who actually made restitution and mended his ways after direct confrontation by his victims and explicit moral counseling. Ever "ahead of the curve," we are happy to report that PPI profiled Genessee Justice, and discussed restorative justice as a potential organizing principle for the criminal justice system, in the January 1997 book, Building the Bridge: 10 Big Ideas to Transform America.