Restorative Justice: A needed alternative to address crime in Puerto Rico

Abstract

During the political judiciary history in Puerto Rico, we have observed the failing
punitive paradigms associated to crime in an isolated perspective, away from other important
issues in context, like social problems, economy, culture, and collective psychological states.
Approaching in a strict and hard manner the philosophy of punitive assumptions, has filled our
institutionary services and jails are full of people without any help. Any of this has solved our
problems and we still have a high criminality index in Puerto Rico. In this investigation I explore
the incongruences presented by public policies of our state with the anti-crime plans that exist
without considering the alternatives of a restorative justice. The models for a “restorative justice”
are presented today as an alternative to be considered in the penitentiary ambit and in the
processes of restauration and reinsertion into society of those offenders. All these should be
considered in the restauration processes: the victim, the community and the offender.