REQUIREMENTS OF JUSTICE: BETWEEN PUNISHMENT AND REPARATION. THE CONFLICT OF THE CRIME AND THE INTERVENTIONS TO PROTECT THE VICTIM AND MAKE THE OFFENDER RESPONSIBLE

Abstract

The paper highlights how in every crime there is a strong conflict that is either the product of the crime itself or pre-exists it. This conflict makes the relationship very complex and requires targeted interventions. Restorative justice offers the possibility of managing the complexity of the conflict connected to the crime, protecting the victim and promoting a process of empowerment of the offender, through which this latter can then proceed to repair the damage to the victim. The repair of the damage, even if only symbolic, will be an expression of the process of empowerment of the offender. The author thus highlights how, although a retributive and punitive intervention against the perpetrator of the crime is necessary, it is equally necessary to promote and encourage a re-educational and re-socialization process of the offender, which sees the repair of the damage as at least a symbolic manifestation of it.