From Punishment to Rehabilitation: Evaluating the Role of Reformative Justice in the Indian Criminal Justice System

Abstract

Indian courts and policy documents have long affirmed that the purpose of punishment is not merely to inflict suffering but to reform the offender and restore him or her to society. This article evaluates how far that reformative ideal is realised in practice. It examines the theory of rehabilitation and its critics, traces the ideal through the Constitution and the Supreme Court's jurisprudence, and surveys the institutions through which it is meant to operate: probation, juvenile justice, prison programmes, parole, furlough and remission. It then documents the gap between aspiration and practice, arising from overcrowding, a high proportion of undertrial prisoners, staff shortages, weak aftercare and arbitrary release decisions. Drawing on comparative and empirical evidence, including the risk-need-responsivity model and the Nordic experience, the article argues that reformative justice remains a principle in search of an institutional structure. It proposes reforms centred on individualised rehabilitation plans, strengthened probation and aftercare, transparent release criteria, and the integration of reformative objectives into sentencing, while respecting the limits that proportionality and public safety impose