Restorative justice & responsive regulation - John Braithwaite

Braithwaite's argument against punitive justice systems and for
restorative justice systems establishes that there are good
theoretical and empirical grounds for anticipating that well designed
restorative justice processes will restore victims, offenders, and
communities better than existing criminal justice practices.
Counterintuitively, he also shows that a restorative justice system
may deter, incapacitate, and rehabilitate more effectively than a
punitivesystem. This is particularly true when the restorative
justice system is embedded in a responsive regulatory framework that
opts for deterrence only after restoration repeatedly fails, and
incapacitation only after escalated deterrence fails. Braithwaite's
empirical research demonstrates thatactive deterrence under the
dynamic regulatory pyramid that is a hallmark of the restorative
justice system he supports, is far more effective than the passive
deterrence that is notable in the stricter "sentencing grid" of
current criminal justice systems.