Portrayal of restorative versus retributive justice

What are restorative and retributive justice? How are they different from each
other? What are the main objectives of these types? What is the influence
these systems have on literature? Which is the better system and why?
Retributive and restorative types of justice are the two systems of criminal
justice followed by the various countries. Retributive system is an age old
practice, whereas restorative is a comparatively recent system of criminal
justice. Retributive theory of punishment is a system which solely focuses on
the aspect of punishing the criminal for the crime committed by him and is not
bothered about the consequences or the impact of this punishment on future
crimes. Whereas, restorative theory of punishment aims to make peace
between the victim and the offender. It is a system which aims to discourage
the offender from repeating the criminal activities and tries to restore him into
the mainstream society. This system tries to answer the question of what to
do?, to prevent such crimes in the future.
The novel The Scarlet Letter, will be helpful for us to understand the impact of
literature on restorative and retributive theories of punishment. This book
authored by Hawthorne starts us off with a tour of the jail of the mid-17th
century Massachusetts Bay Colony. Inside the jail is one Hester Prynne, an
adulteress who's just about to be released from prison so that she can be
paraded through town, displaying the scarlet "A" that she's been forced to
wear as punishment of her adultery. How do we know she's an adulteress?
She's got a baby daughter, Pearl, but her husband has been away for two full
years. She had to wear this letter “A” for the remaining part of her life and
even when she passed away, the letter “A” was marked on her grave.
This was retributive form of punishment. The woman had to live with the
burden of punishment for her entire life and had to go through all the agony
and was eventually separated from the society due to the scarlet. If this had
been the case in a restorative society, she would have been punished with fine
and imprisonment. She would have been given a chance to correct herself and
get back to the mainstream society. Further, this research paper also
elaborates on the point of view as to why restorative theory of punishment is
better than retributive theory. It also explains how the adultery has evolved
from a crime to a civil offence which is not punishable but only a ground for
divorce.