The Thought Behind Accident Compensation
Accident Compensation for the victim of an accident comes from the school of thought known as Restorative Justice.
The idea behind it is that rather than punishing somebody because either the law or community demands it, you review the needs of the victims and offenders and decide on which course of action to take from there.
This leads to systems of rehabilitation rather than punishment and lowers re-offending rates, rather than simply keeping those who have offended locked up.
It also demonstrates a higher rate of satisfaction in the justice system from victims.
Compensation is a part of this as it covers the needs of the victim by forcing the offender to reimburse them.
This also has the effect of demonstrating to the offender the damage that their actions have caused and the costs necessary to fix those.
When looking at a case from a Restorative Justice standpoint, three questions are asked: Who has been hurt? What are their needs? Whose obligations are these? How much compensation and who pays it to who is all decided based on the answers to these questions.
This is instead of the more common questions in systems of justice, which are: What laws have been broken? Who did it? What do they deserve? In this view the victim's needs are ignored and punishment is handed out according to whichever arbitrary justice system is in use.
Restorative justice and compensation also goes a long way to removing the arbitrary nature of justice systems.
Rather than deciding that theft means five years in prison, or the loss of a hand, or death, the "punishment" that the offender undergoes is determined by how much work is necessary to bring the victim back to a position they were in before the offence was committed.
In the British system of law, purely restorative justice is used mainly in civil claims, such as personal injury, work compensation or accident claims.
In the criminal system it is used to a lesser degree and many cases still result in a prison sentence, but things like community service and awarding compensation to victims that the offender has to pay have all moved the criminal system towards a restorative justice system as well.
The idea behind it is that rather than punishing somebody because either the law or community demands it, you review the needs of the victims and offenders and decide on which course of action to take from there.
This leads to systems of rehabilitation rather than punishment and lowers re-offending rates, rather than simply keeping those who have offended locked up.
It also demonstrates a higher rate of satisfaction in the justice system from victims.
Compensation is a part of this as it covers the needs of the victim by forcing the offender to reimburse them.
This also has the effect of demonstrating to the offender the damage that their actions have caused and the costs necessary to fix those.
When looking at a case from a Restorative Justice standpoint, three questions are asked: Who has been hurt? What are their needs? Whose obligations are these? How much compensation and who pays it to who is all decided based on the answers to these questions.
This is instead of the more common questions in systems of justice, which are: What laws have been broken? Who did it? What do they deserve? In this view the victim's needs are ignored and punishment is handed out according to whichever arbitrary justice system is in use.
Restorative justice and compensation also goes a long way to removing the arbitrary nature of justice systems.
Rather than deciding that theft means five years in prison, or the loss of a hand, or death, the "punishment" that the offender undergoes is determined by how much work is necessary to bring the victim back to a position they were in before the offence was committed.
In the British system of law, purely restorative justice is used mainly in civil claims, such as personal injury, work compensation or accident claims.
In the criminal system it is used to a lesser degree and many cases still result in a prison sentence, but things like community service and awarding compensation to victims that the offender has to pay have all moved the criminal system towards a restorative justice system as well.
