I agree with you. I did spend a lot of time with restorative justice folks in the early years of my career and I support it 100%. I think it's a fantastic program, whether it's a pre-charge diversion program or a post-charge diversion program, or even just restorative justice to eliminate the charge and sit down and have that discussion.
However, they have been unequally applied all across different jurisdictions with inadequate funding and with no effective mechanism to ensure they are effective.