The restorative approach argues that the current ordering of western penal systems suffers excessive abstractness, which leads a criminal offense to be seen essentially as a “violation or breaking of the law”, stemming from which is a formalistic vision of the ensuing punishment, which is defined as “the legal consequence for the perpetration of a crime”. Conversely, the restorative approach proposes considering the crime as harm inflicted upon the person and on the fabric of inter-subjective relations, issuing forth from which is the fundamental obligation for the offender to redress the harm perpetrated insofar as possible.
La aproximación reparativa responde a la actual actitud de los sistemas penales occidentales, con una excesiva abstracción, que llevan a concebir el delito, esencialmente, como ‘violación de la ley’, de la cuál desciende una visión formalista de la pena misma, definida como ‘consecuencia jurídica por cometer un delito’.