Restorative Justice is an approach to deal with graffiti vandalism that focuses on the needs of the victims and the offenders, as well as the involved community. It is based on the belief that it can promote human goods in the pursuit of restoration of harm and the correction of deviant behaviour (Gavrielides, 2016). It aims to create empathy and remorse and through constructive and honest dialogue create a sense of responsibility in the “offender” and a feeling of empowerment and justice in the “victim”(Graffolution, 2016).
On the other hand, in some cases the main focus is on ‘correctional practices’ (Sherman and Strang, 2007) under the umbrella term of ‘restorative justice, rather then focusing on the themes of ‘honest dialogue’ and ‘empathy'. Alternatively following a traditional understanding of responsibility that focuses on offender ‘punishment’ rather than acknowledging responsibility and repairing the harm caused.

As a procedure Restorative Justice is accepted more humane than conventional justice and provides better results. Here better results refer to aspects such as more repair of harm to victims, fewer crimes of vengeance by victims, more reconciliation and social bonding among families and friends affected by crime, and more offences brought to justice (Graffolution, 2016).

Restorative Justice can reduce crime for some kinds of offences but not others. It needs to be carefully tested for specific kinds of cases before it is put into general practice. This is something that should be kept in mind in terms of reducing graffiti vandalism. Restorative Justice requires emotional maturity and capacity for empathy, which some young people may lack, this then has the large potential for the Restorative Justice processes to fail. These two issues then help test the possibilities of Restorative Justice in graffiti related crime. If an offender lacks emotional capacity and a ‘victim’ does not actually feel as a victim of a crime and do not consider graffiti as a cause of harm then Restorative Justice practices will fail to make a difference. Strang et al. (2013) also indicate that as part of the Restorative Justice process, especially related to graffiti, it is important to include families of the offenders as they are also highly affected by the act and its aftermath.