There are many different types of programs that purport to based on the restorative justice theory; regardless, the implementation of this theory is a result of a recognized need for changes in the treatment of criminals in the justice system. Recognition that there needed to be a change that would result in the reduction of crime for the betterment of individuals and society.
There has always been a cognizance of a need for change in the western legal systems regarding the sentencing of criminals. These changes, hopefully, will reduce the level of crime in societies in which the legal systems operate. In early part of the century, there were signs of growth in the academic legal community that recognized this need for change. For instance, at that time, the Harvard Law Professor, Roscoe Pound, in Criminal Justice in America argued that the justice system in the United States relied too much on the punitive justice and this was not serving the society in the long-run. This heavy reliance on punitive justice was overstated and other approaches needed to be accepted by academics and practitioners as legitimate, as Pound states:.
[B]ut the deeper possibilities of prevention have received scant attention from lawyers. Yet it comes clear that preventive justice will play a large part in the law of the future. The prejudice against it in the minds of common-law lawyers is historical in origin and has no sound basis .It leaves untouched the great filed of criminal law, a field in which, more that anywhere else, preventive justice might be made to achieve great things. .
The outdated, but still useful, opinion of Professor Pound is valuable in illustrating that there were changing attitudes about criminal justice in the common-law systems: punishment should no longer be the only factor when deciding a fit sentencing. This was in an era were punishment was the sole means of a criminal sentence.
