Retributive Justice Vs. Restorative Justice

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." 

    -Ghandi

It is far more ethical, far more noble, far more righteous, and far more just to restore and correct than destroy and throw away. It preserves the dignity and value of a person and makes them useful and productive instead of wasted potential. Restoration addresses the most important part of justice and injustice; causality. When you restore or correct, you are finding a solution to a cause of a problem that is effective, ethical, and useful instead of just a reaction to it. 

      Retributive justice is purely reaction-based. When someone does something wrong, you punish them for the sake of punishment alone with no intention to actually fix the cause of the problem or violation. It is often merciless and rarely impartial, and it leads to more of a throwing away than a redemption or restoration.  It often feeds off of hatred and can be quite oppressive. In fact, retributive justice has very often been used as a tool of oppression and the deprivation of rights and privileges, and it continues to be used like this today. Retributive justice is, at its core, just revenge backed by authority.

         Restorative justice is more advanced and more ethical. A "higher calling" so to speak. It looks at crimes and injustices as mistakes that need to be corrected and brokenness that needs to be repaired and restored rather than a crime that needs to be punished and avenged. It takes the problem to its cause and source in order to remedy and fix it, and to prevent future problems from occurring. It is a solution, not a reaction.  It's like a doctor performing surgery rather than a policeman with a baton. 

       Restoration, correction, repairing, healing, whatever you want to call it, when you apply these things to justice, you find yourself having a far more ethical, moral, and benevolent system of solving social problems and things like crimes or violations than you do with retribution. Retribution rarely solves problems, it mostly reacts to them. 

 No one, and nothing, is beyond repairing, beyond healing, and beyond restoring. It just takes dedication and scientific and moral/ethical advancement that much of humanity just hasn't achieved yet. It is also just difficult. Condemnation is easy. Mercy and restoration is harder. Throwing away someone or something is easy. Fixing it and repairing it is hard. However, advancement in any form, whether that be moral, ethical, technological, social, etc. rarely came from simple, sweeping solutions. It came from complexity and complex thinking. It came from taking the hard road. 

Maybe we should apply that to justice. Restorative justice is far more advanced, far less brutal, and far more ethical than retributive justice has ever been. However, restorative justice is hard to implement and even harder to maintain. That's why retribution is far more common.