But for many victims of crime, zero tolerance, broad criminal prohibitions and harsh sentences are not a possible or an even desirable response.

Stefanie Mundhenk Harrelson went to the police after she was raped in college by a classmate in 2015. Like an overwhelming majority of reported sexual assaults, her case was never referred for prosecution. Ms. Harrelson came to view the criminal justice system as inadequate. Even if her case had been pursued and resulted in a prison sentence, she said, it would not have helped her heal. Restorative justice, she wrote, paraphrasing a book by Danielle Sered, is preferable because it holds the offender accountable through an acknowledgment of responsibility and expression of remorse for one’s actions. The criminal justice system often incentivizes offenders to do the opposite.

Sujatha Baliga, who was recently awarded a MacArthur “Genius” grant and directs a restorative justice program at the nonprofit Impact Justice, said in a radio interview that she did not report the sexual abuse she suffered as a child. “I did not want my father to be arrested and locked up. I didn’t want potential immigration consequences for my family,” she said. “I did not want child protective services to become involved and potentially remove me from my home.”

It is important to listen to these voices. In the #MeToo era, there is a widespread presumption that the best way to reckon with sexual misconduct and serve victims’ interests is through the criminal system. #MeToo has done away with the risible idea that some level of unwanted sexual touching must be tolerated because it is simply not “serious enough” to report. But as more people have been prosecuted for an array of sexually inappropriate conduct, the criminal justice system’s shortcomings have become more pronounced.

Criminal prosecutions expose victims to a toxic level of stress, if not trauma. The benefit is a potential pound of the offender’s flesh. But even in rare cases where perpetrators are convicted and punished severely, many victims report that their experience was retraumatizing and disempowering: Their story was confined to the rigid strictures of a prosecutor’s narrative and raked over on cross-examination. Of course, advocates argue that the process should be reformed so that victims do not face such scrutiny. But sex offenses carry some of the highest penalties under the law; rape trials will never simply be rubber stamps for the prosecution. Any fair criminal process will subject the victim to unavoidable scrutiny — the kind of invasive cross-examination experienced by Mr. Weinstein’s accusers.