Objectives:
The aim of this paper is to outline the specifics and meaning of the idea of restorative justice in the context of dealing with offenders, as well as the approach to crime, including its genesis, forms, and methods. Another important aspect is the significant growth of importance of restorative justice in the last decades - both in prevention, education, and the social rehabilitation of offenders.

Material and methods:
Research methods include mostly the interpretative content analysis supported by source analysis and a historical method.  

Results:
The outcomes delineate the evolution of different approaches to crime at the crossroads of philosophy, special education, and criminal policy. This analysis leads through the turns in the development of thinking about offenders and crimes they commit. Restorative justice is discussed here as an instrument of a psychological, social, and institutional factors for the facilitation of crime prevention, as well as the treatment of offenders. The results of the analysis confront the hitherto approaches, revealing them as less effective compared to the restorative one.

Conclusions:
The ongoing implementation of restorative justice to rehabilitation theory and practice not only seems to have the potential of more efficient prevention of relapse, and further labeling of offenders after the release from prison. It also implies the need for structural changes in prison systems in general. In contrast to sometimes irrational foundations underlying social and institutional approaches to offenders in the past, such an integrative approach focused on research and scientific data translates to the enhancement in the efficacy of rehabilitation of offenders. Besides, it reveals the importance of thinking about rehabilitation in a more comprehensive, psychosocial way.