Social Theory and Practice

Volume 38, Issue 2, April 2012

Restitutionism
A Self-Defeating Theory of Criminal Justice

According to the restitutionist view on justice, criminals should compensate their victims for the losses they have suffered as the result of crime. The discussion amongst proponents and critics of restitutionism has, to a large extent, focused on the question as to whether the theory is capable of dealing with many of the complicated challenges that arise within a criminal justice system. However, in this paper it is suggested that the restitutionist theory of justice should be rejected from the very outset. Given an empirical assumption, referred to as the Third Parties Assumption, it is argued that the theory is practically self-defeating in the sense that it cannot be applied without violating its own prescriptions.