A review of the literature on restitution focuses on the ideological functioning of the criminal process. This is followed by an examination of the historical claim, advanced by advocates of the 'restitutionary theory of justice,' that tribal societies drew no distinction between private and public wrongs. Additional data presented suggest that a tribal law of crimes did exist. A closer look at the punishment of criminal conduct in tribal societies concludes that this social practice reinforced a group ideology pertaining to boundary-defining mechanisms. Using this analysis of crime in tribal society, a model is created to illustrate criminal law's role in contemporary Western society. The model indicates that criminal adjudication and sentencing combine to maintain an ideology in which autonomous individuals are ascribed responsibility for complying with group norms. The integrity of the adjudicatory ceremony is its capacity to articulate the nature of the offender's freely willed conduct. This ceremony is undermined when a court fashions a restitution sentence which goes beyond the offender's adjudicated guilt. 286 footnotes.