Guessed - I'm afraid I tend to agree. I can't see how Restorative Justice will 'get through' to drug addicts or those with no code of ethics. It seems simplistic wishful thinking to expect habitual criminals to feel shame/guilt in the way we would.

My father reads the local papers every day and has taken an interest in following the fortunes of one local criminal since youth. Twenty years he was being sent on exotic foreign holidays, given special support and endless 'second chances' etc in a futile effort to persuade him to mend his ways. Only recently dad read that he's been sent to prison yet again (nowadays for more serious crimes, of course).

Julie