Institutional Injustice as Root Cause

Sor Juana's marginalization by religious and state institutions shaped her entire life and work. She understood that individual harm rarely occurs in isolation—it emerges within systems of power that allow and even incentivize it. Punitive justice typically treats harm as an individual moral failing, isolating and punishing the offender while leaving oppressive structures intact. A Sor Juana-informed restorative approach recognizes that many harms reflect institutional injustice: discrimination, denied opportunity, exploitation, and exclusion that make harm more likely. True restoration requires examining and transforming the systems that enabled harm. This might mean addressing poverty, discrimination, lack of education, or institutional abuse that created conditions for the harm to occur. Restorative justice grounded in structural awareness asks: What unjust systems allowed this harm to happen, and how must they change?