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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES             H.R. NO.              
TWENTIETH LEGISLATURE, 2000                                
STATE OF HAWAII                                            
                                                             
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                     HOUSE  RESOLUTION

RELATING TO RESTORATIVE JUSTICE. 


 1       WHEREAS, restorative justice is an alternative
 2   philosophical framework to the current theories regarding
 3   criminal justice; and
 4   
 5       WHEREAS, restorative justice views crime primarily as a
 6   violation of the victim and community and primarily focuses on
 7   the repairing of harm caused to the victim and the community;
 8   and
 9   
10       WHEREAS, key assumptions of restorative justice include: a
11   victim central process for defining harm and repair of harm, an
12   inclusive approach to crime response with voluntary
13   participation by all parties including the victim, community,
14   and offender, restoration before punishment as the highest
15   priority of the criminal justice system, crime control rests
16   primarily with the social system because the criminal justice
17   system can only respond to crimes, thus having a marginal
18   impact on the level of crime, offenders are directly
19   accountable to victims and the community and are active
20   participants in repatriation to victims and the community,
21   restitution is a common vehicle for restoration; and
22   
23       WHEREAS, recidivism is a large factor in prison
24   overcrowding and is a large hidden cost of any proposal to
25   address prison overcrowding; and
26   
27       WHEREAS, restorative justice specifically addresses
28   recidivism and prison overcrowding; and
29   
30       WHEREAS, private agencies and organizations are currently
31   in place to implement a restorative justice centered criminal
32   justice system; now, therefore,
33   
34       BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the
35   Twentieth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session
36   of 2000, that the philosophy of restorative justice should be
37   incorporated into current criminal justice thinking; and 
38   

 
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                                  H.R. NO.              
                                                        
                                                        

 
 1       BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the practice of restorative
 2   justice should be incorporated into current methods of
 3   incarceration in order to more specifically address the
 4   problems facing our criminal justice system, namely, prison
 5   overcrowding and recidivism.
 6 
 7                         OFFERED BY:  ____________________________