Drugs are a serious issue which causes harm to society and the individuals who come in contact with drugs. Individuals who are dependent on drugs tend to be disadvantaged in various social institutions such as health, education, social relationship, and work sector; it causes exclusion from family and other relationships and impacts employment. An individual becoming addicted to drugs would result in social influences such as lack of social morals, troubled childhood, peer pressure and other social influences these causes increases the chances for an individual becoming a drug abuser. The purpose of this essay is to address drug driving issue, the essay will elaborate on restorative justice and using the approaches to address drug driving issue and using statistics from NSW bureau of research and statistic to analyse the current punishments allocated for drug driving and whether they are decreasing drug driving. Furthermore, the essay will discusses the limitation of using restorative justice in reduction rate of drug driving.
Restorative justice is a modern way of providing justice to both victim and the offender, it combines both criminology and victimology and aspects from humanities, although it is practiced in contemporary criminal justice system; restorative justice is practiced in African and Native American cultures, and has historical roots through the demand for retributive justice has changed the ideology of justice. Retributive justice is opposite to restorative justice it emphasizes the need for punishment in order for the offender to learn and take responsibility for their actions. And creates social order by punishing the public for wrongdoing, thus creates fear of being punished. Whereas, restorative justice emphasis that crime causes harm to the victim, society and the offender; restorative justice recognizes the need for repair between the victim, offender, and the community.
Firstly restorative justice views regarding an offence are justified as harm and violation of the relationship between the individual, rather than an infraction of the law, compared to the retributive approach of backward-looking of the offences, restorative justice is forward-looking seeking to repair the harm caused by the offender. Secondly, restorative justice involves offender to reintegrate back into the society, though the key process is the offender taking responsibility for the deviances and harm caused, feeling remorse and seeking forgiveness from the affected.
Encouraging offenders to be involved back into the society, involves conferences this is an important aspect in the restorative justice process. The richness and willingness to participate in dialogue are essential for restorative justice, sharing moral values and communicating strengthen the distort social bonds between the offender and the victims. The involvement of community member in the dialogue also enriches the effectiveness of healing the victim and the offender, by sharing social values of what our behavior is morally acceptable teaches and guides the offender from the further involvement of immoral actions. The conference increase satisfaction for both victims and offender “the offender justice conferences also lowers significantly the likelihood of offender recidivism in comparison with participation in traditional court procedures”.
Traditional criminal justice system lacks the involvement of the victims and offenders, which is problematic as it leaves both parties unsatisfied with the process. The criminal justice system is lacking in the involvement of victims in the process, victims perspectives and needs are overlooked. Whereas, restorative justice involves both the victims and the offender in every step of the prosecution while maximizing reparation for the victims. Restorative justice involves both the victim and the offender by the confrontation of the harms caused by the offender, whether its physical, emotional and social. Victims are a key part of restorative justice, prioritizing victims needs and willingness to communicate with the offender and willing to forgive the offender for their actions; although victim forgiving helps the offender to recover it also helps victims to “relieve themselves of the burden of resentment, anger, vengefulness, and other negative feelings toward the offender”.
Firstly, there is a correlation between drug abuse and violent behavior, people who are under the influence of drug regular tend to engage in violent acts, positioning themselves in as victims and the offender. Drug abuse and violence affect society as a whole, increasing the crime rate, health concerns and disturbing other social institution such as employment and education. Drug law offences include drug trafficking, manufacturing, possession; though drug driving is an issue causing many deaths. Drink driving is a traffic safety issue and in addition, drug driving is causing a hazard to the driver and other road users. Individual who consume drugs prior to driving has a high risk on their driving strategies, a substance such as cannabis is a common substance found in the blood sample on test offenders. Research conducted on drinking-driving suggest, individuals are influenced by factors such as peer pressure, transportation, the perception of being caught by police is low likelihood and accepting behavior towards drink driving. Equivalently, drug driving has similar influential factors on an individual decision making.
The model of punishment deterrence is used to deter people from drug driving, the fear of being punished for drug driving decreases the likelihood of an individual from drug driving. Research conducted in Stockland illustrate, “drug drivers reported that there was a smaller chance of them being caught while drug driving than drink-driving”. This increases the risk of more individual drug driving, without considering the consequences. According to NSW research and statistics, the number of drug driving cases has significantly elevated by 320 percent from 2,331 to 9808 member mostly ages between 18 to 39 and 98 percent of the offender were found guilty.The current penalties for drug driving and community service, bond with and without supervision, fines and imprisonment are allocated to offenders. Although the current penalties charged for drug driving, is unsuccessful due to the increasing rates, hence the need for alternative approaches are required as “If those numbers continue to increase the rise in drug driving detections has the potential to increase the Corrections NSW workload due to the requirement for more prison beds and more offender supervision”.
As previously mentioned the increasing number of drug driving offences is a serious issue as it affects the individual and society as a whole; there is a need for an alternative theory such as restorative justice rather than depending on retributive and incapacitation theory NSW research and statistics illustrated 41.2 percent reoffending rates of individuals who are sentenced to prison. Restorative justice would significantly reduce an individual from reoffending, drug driving is influenced through improper social control, through which an individual is encouraged to engage in criminal behavior. Restorative justice encourages social bonds such as beliefs, responsibilities and community involvement, drug driving offenders with bad social influences is more likely to re-offend; hence restorative justice could help decrease the reoffending rate and reconnecting the offender with moral beliefs and social bonds.
Firstly, traditional court process underpins and portrays the individual as a permanent offender and the process itself reinstates and stigmatizes the individual as an offender, whereas restorative justice rejects the traditional court process of stigmatizing the offender. Restorative justice is more effective in reducing reoffending rates, According to NSW research and statistics drug driving offender are mostly aged between 18 to 39, research illustrated that restorative justice is mostly aimed at juvenile, because of the effectiveness of restorative justice compared to court process, which is through conferencing; both victim and the offender found the process more satisfying and regained the sense of security.
Traditional court process victim is left less unsatisfied with the proceeding, the victim is less active in the traditional court process and victims needs are neglected during prosecution of the case, which leads to more dissatisfaction of the outcome. The lack of involvement of victims in the traditional court process creates a negative impact on justice process for victims; whereas restorative justice provides the victim a central role in the process, while actively maintaining the victim needs. Drug driving offences do consist of victims and non-victims cases, restorative justice such as conference should be allocated for drug driving cases, rather using traditional court process, where both the victim and the offender are stigmatized and dissatisfied, using conference for victim based cases allows the victim and offender assist a face to face conference; these conferences significantly increase the satisfaction of the outcome and reduce the emotional burden, anger, and vengefulness. Whereas community-based intervention for non-victim based allows the offender to learn social morals and bonds rather than shaming the offender, community-based conferences teach the offender acceptable behaviours in a society emphasizing better social influences.
The current policies which address drug driving are community service interventions which incorporate restorative justice values such as reconnecting the offender with the society and repairing the harm caused by the deviant act. Community service has shown a reduction rate in reoffending by 17 percent compared to community service with community bond. Similarly, prison sentencing is punishing the offender rather than curing the offender, thus causing more harm to the offender and increasing prison population affect the state economy as the estimated each offender requires thirty four thousand to fifty thousand dollars depending on the security and other facilities. Whereas establishing full fledge restorative justice approach is cost-effective such as unpaid community service.
A policy should be implemented in addressing public interest, research by NSW research and statistics conducted research on finding public perception regarding restorative justice approaches, the data outcome illustrate “perceptions of sentences imposed by the courts are generally of the view that they are ‘too lenient’, when specially asked to consider alternatives, such as restorative justice initiatives, high levels of agreement are observed.” Based on the research, restorative justice approaches should be included for drug driving, including the community circles actively allowing the public to be part of the justice system, not only benefiting the offender but also the community. As previously mentioned restorative justice involves the public in the process, giving the society a voice, where traditional criminal court process does not include the public opinions, “the sentence decision-making process must be altered to share power with the community”.
Restorative justice has many positive aspects towards healing the parties involved in the crime, although there is a limitation of restorative justice. Lack of agreement upon restorative justice definition is a drop back for this theory. Restorative justice programs included practices such as circle sentencing, offender and victim mediation, family conferences and community conferences; all these practices are allocated after the offender pleads guilty. Hence the limitation of this process is restorative justice is seeking to cure the offender, victim and social relationships rather than addressing whether justice is served.
In traditional court process a participant, could predict the outcome and how their court attendance on a particular day would be, either positive or negative; whereas restorative justice it’s hard to predict the outcome of the restorative conference. As it is independent of how an individual processed and accepts the process, the participants require a minimum of “moral maturity” and concerns for other members, which is problematic for young juveniles or victims. Furthermore, the offender should be willing to participate and be motivated towards changing and accepting the harm caused, which also applicate to the victim; victims should be willing to communicate and restore the harmed relationships, which can be a traumatizing experience.
Addressing drug driving with restorative justice would be effective in terms of reoffending rate, rebuilding the social relationship, though limitations of restorative justice would possibly limit the probability for reducing drug driving issue. Firstly, drug driving possesses of drugs, dealing with the offender with drug addiction needs extra care and rehabilitation perspective, most of all the offender willingness to participate in the conferences and other rehabilitative programs. Secondly, if the offender is not remorse then there’s a likelihood of other sentencing options, restorative justice only approaches the process if the offender pleads guilty; this would affect the reduction rate of drug driving case, as it solely depends on the individual choice.
In conclusion restorative justice potentially reduce drug driving issue, allowing the offender to take responsibility for the harm caused, rather than using other theories such as retributive and incapacitation which resulted in higher reoffending rates compared to restorative justice punishments such as community service; prison sentencing involves the cost of maintaining the prison and extra cost for special security, which affects the state economy. Compared to restorative justice punishment such as community service, not only benefits the offender, society but also inexpensive. Providing the victim with a central role in the process is prioritized in the restorative justice process, whereas traditional criminal court process does not involve the victim in the decision making or does not prioritize victim needs; making the victim feel vulnerable. Whereas, restorative justice helps the victim to communicate and overcome any negative emotion such as vengefulness against the offender. Secondly, the weakness of the restorative justice approach would potentially affect drug driving issue, as it solely independents on the individual process and restorative justice is allocated if the offender pleads guilty.