“Support and love, by contrast, may be a more effective way to counter the feelings of threat involved in an apology.”

Of course, that last line about support and love made me think about restorative justice interventions and how powerful they can be. As a facilitator, I’ve seen offenders who  had previously refused to apologise offer a sincere apology after listening to the victim. But, for the victim’s story to have that impact it has to be told in an environment that cultivates a sense of security and support. Respectful communication and acknowledgement of the other’s humanity goes a long way to facilitating such a safe place for confession and apology to happen. 

Going back to the situation with the leader, our team had tried to create this environment by being encouraging and emphasizing our desire for restoration.  Obviously, we didn’t do that great of a job. But, given the importance of relationships we will keep trying while remembering how important the respectful interaction is for creating a sense of safety and care to help facilitate responsibility and behaviour change.  After all, the point behind any process of confession and apology should be to build stronger relationships and group cohesion instead of punishment. 

“Support and love, by contrast, may be a more effective way to counter the feelings of threat involved in an apology.”

Of course, that last line about support and love made me think about restorative justice interventions and how powerful they can be. As a facilitator, I’ve seen offenders who  had previously refused to apologise offer a sincere apology after listening to the victim. But, for the victim’s story to have that impact it has to be told in an environment that cultivates a sense of security and support. Respectful communication and acknowledgement of the other’s humanity goes a long way to facilitating such a safe place for confession and apology to happen. 

Going back to the situation with the leader, our team had tried to create this environment by being encouraging and emphasizing our desire for restoration.  Obviously, we didn’t do that great of a job. But, given the importance of relationships we will keep trying while remembering how important the respectful interaction is for creating a sense of safety and care to help facilitate responsibility and behaviour change.  After all, the point behind any process of confession and apology should be to build stronger relationships and group cohesion instead of punishment. 

Along with educational and vocational programme, life skills training, faith-based activities, the prison service includes restorative justice programmes that focus directly on the harm of crime and the rebuilding of relationships. One is an adaptation of the Sycamore Tree Project® offered by Prison Fellowship Solomon Islands that allows prisoners to meet with crime victims and discuss the impact of crime, personal responsibility, confession, repentance, making amends and reconciliation. As seen in the video, in Solomon Islands the next step includes meetings between direct victims and offenders to begin rebuilding relationships to help improve reintegration upon release. 

With each meeting with a client, we read and sign a confidentiality agreement. It states that neither the facilitator nor client will share identifying content from the case. It’s a way of creating a safe place for speaking from the heart. The confidentiality agreement also says that the files will not be used in any court proceedings whatsoever. 

Of course, there are limits to confidentiality and those are disclosed so that everyone knows and can take that into consideration. The only problem is that there isn't statutory protection for restorative justice facilitators in my state. While this does exist for mediation, I've been told that it doesn't apply to restorative conferencing. 

So, I come back to my case where the civil suit has been threatened. One fear is that anything the offender said in the conferencing process could show up in a civil suit. I've had apology letters from a restorative conference used this way.  But, I've also been told that by meeting with the offender to explain the process and offer him an opportunity to participate, I could be opening myself to being called to testify in the civil suit. To do so would undermine the programme as no one would have the guarantee of confidentiality. At the same time, I could face legal consequences for not doing so. 

I've gotten some advice from people who have a much better understanding of the law than I do. But, I still don’t know what to do. At this point, it is all hypothetical as the suit has not been files although there are a few months left for doing so. My inclination is to meet with the parties and see where they are and offer the process. But, I still have a fear of doing so. 

With each meeting with a client, we read and sign a confidentiality agreement. It states that neither the facilitator nor client will share identifying content from the case. It’s a way of creating a safe place for speaking from the heart. The confidentiality agreement also says that the files will not be used in any court proceedings whatsoever. 

Of course, there are limits to confidentiality and those are disclosed so that everyone knows and can take that into consideration. The only problem is that there isn't statutory protection for restorative justice facilitators in my state. While this does exist for mediation, I've been told that it doesn't apply to restorative conferencing. 

So, I come back to my case where the civil suit has been threatened. One fear is that anything the offender said in the conferencing process could show up in a civil suit. I've had apology letters from a restorative conference used this way.  But, I've also been told that by meeting with the offender to explain the process and offer him an opportunity to participate, I could be opening myself to being called to testify in the civil suit. To do so would undermine the programme as no one would have the guarantee of confidentiality. At the same time, I could face legal consequences for not doing so. 

I've gotten some advice from people who have a much better understanding of the law than I do. But, I still don’t know what to do. At this point, it is all hypothetical as the suit has not been files although there are a few months left for doing so. My inclination is to meet with the parties and see where they are and offer the process. But, I still have a fear of doing so. 

Some are confused when I describe what I do. I've received comments about people being criminals and the best way to deal with them is to be harsh. Some people criticise me for caring more about offenders than victims. Others even comment that the offender has lost part of his humanity. It is a total dismissal of the “criminal” with very little thought about the “human being.” 

At the same time, many of these folks are devout Christians. They would proclaim grace and forgiveness. But, for those who have committed crimes that is not the case. Both conservatives and liberals can be very punitive. 

Then, there are the people who have family members caught up in the criminal justice system and some who have been victims of crime (often both). Their views offer a very different perspective. They are interested in what I do and really like the ideas presented by restorative justice. They see the human being capable of causing great harm. At the same time, they still see daughters, sons, nieces, nephews, cousins and parents. These are people that someone loves despite the criminal activity. 

I’m often amazed when these two groups meet and open up about their stories. I don’t know why it surprises me, but that sharing of stories helps to change perspective. I see it in restorative conferences when victims and offenders communicate from the heart. It also happens when those who have a loved one in prison shares from the heart. The offender, the criminal, that person not worth considering becomes a human being, becomes a loved one. This doesn't excuse harmful behaviour, but it does open doors for a different justice response.  A response based in grace and forgiveness instead of punitiveness.  

Yet, facilitators receive a lot of emotion from the participants. I've written before about the need to process such emotion. I tend to think about this as something done after the restorative encounter. So, what would an emotional display by the facilitator mean for the conference or other restorative process? What impact would it have for the participants?

I don’t know the answer to my questions or the one that the Prison Fellowship leader asked me. In the end, I responded that it all depended on the situation and facilitator. If the tears don’t hinder the facilitator’s ability to watch the group dynamics and be present for the participants, then tears should be okay. But, if the tears get in the way then no it’s not.

It all comes down to how we are present for the participants in the process. I’m still trying to figure out how the facilitator’s own emotions fit into the process. 

I went on to explain that all I could guarantee was a safe place to tell her story. She would have the opportunity to tell the driver about having sheriff’s deputies show up at her house to say her son was in the hospital and the pain of having to bury a child. She could talk about all the life events she witnessed other young people experiencing while grieving anew that her son was not there to take part. I also told her that she could ask questions and listen to the driver tell his story of the accident, how he was affected, and how he saw his actions affecting others. 

The mother accepted the explanation and thought that would be enough for participation. Unfortunately, the conference didn't take place but I've not forgotten that conversation. I can still remember listening to the mother’s pain and her need for someone to take ownership or blame for her son’s death. I had met with the offender and had listened to his story of grief and how he wished he could change the events that led to our conversation. It ran through my mind to tell her about those meetings. But, I couldn't. 

The conference would be their process. As a facilitator, I’m responsible for making sure the conference is a safe place for those affected by crime to share their stories and build understanding. I can’t define what their needs are. Neither can I make promises about what they will receive from it. I can only explain the process, listen to their stories, and answer their questions. I can make sure they have enough information to make a decision about participation. The rest is up to those who choose to participate. 

In the end, it all comes down to creating a safe space for understanding by letting people tell their stories and ask questions. Yes, they express emotions during such a meeting. I've talked to victims who felt they had seen remorse from the person who had hurt them. Some offenders have told me that they felt forgiven by the person they had harmed. But, the majority simply thank me for letting them tell their stories. So, I don’t look for remorse, just understanding. 

Will standing on a sidewalk for two hours help the woman understand why she is there? Will she have any idea why the driver was upset? While she may not go it again, will the thinking that led her to drive up on the sidewalk instead of stopping be changed? I can’t see that happening, not through punitive actions. 

As I've said in other articles, this is why restorative processes are important. They provide an avenue for responding that not only seeks justice but also brings understanding. In a restorative process, the bus driver could share his/her concerns about the behaviour. What were his thoughts when he saw the car driving up on the sidewalk? What were his fears? Parents from the community could share the same concerns, fears, and worries. 

In such a process, the driver would have an opportunity to tell her own story. What was she thinking? Why did she feel it was okay to drive on the sidewalk? She would also have the opportunity to listen -- in a safe environment -- to the other side of the story. She could hear people talk about their fears of someone stepping out on the sidewalk to be hit. She could see the behaviour from another perspective: the perspective of people affected by the actions instead of a punishment perspective. Providing space for such understanding can have a much more profound impact than any punishment. 

For Therese, the journey toward understanding included a Masters of Science in Criminal Justice as a way of making sense of the reasons for or underlying factors to crime as well as the criminal justice response. A discussion on restorative justice offers stark observations on how the system does not serve the needs of victims, offenders, or the community. It is a call for something else, a justice response that sees the humanity in each person and provides a pathway for restoration. 

The film’s final segment chronicles Therese’s journey to victim offender dialogue with the man who killed her brother. Representatives from the South Carolina Victim Assistance Network discuss the process and the preparation needs for both victims and prisoners. Therese is seen entering the prison and meeting the offender. Their conversation is honest with Therese asking questions about how the offender saw his actions and how his behaviour will be different upon release from prison. In describing his reasons for agreeing to meet with Therese, the offender talks about his concern for her family as well as Steve’s children. He also talks about his own life circumstances and how he wished he could change the events of that night in 2003. 

Throughout the video, we see clips from Therese’s video diary as she shares various emotions stemming from Steve’s death. The morning after the meeting in the prison, she describes feeling good but being emotionally, physically and mentally drained. In later comments, she describes leaving the prison with a feeling of liberation as if a weight had been removed from her shoulders.

The Final Gift provides a real look at the many emotions surrounding crime and loss as well as the difficult journey of coming into a restorative process. It offers valuable insights for anyone interested in working with victims, criminal justice reform, and facilitating restorative processes. 

For me, this is one of the saddest aspects of the criminal justice system. Many times I've talked with offenders who would like to offer an apology (although not all of them). Yet, they are unable to due to warnings from law enforcement and lawyers. The adversarial nature of the system simply keeps people apart. 

This is why I like facilitating restorative conferences. It’s a tough process with lots of difficult emotions. At times, it places me in uncomfortable situations. Yet, it opens space for people who have experienced deep harm -- whether as victim or offender -- to communicate. They can tell their stories, ask their questions, and share emotions. For most of the people I've talked with that type of sharing is an integral part of moving beyond the harms they experienced. 

The attitude bothered me and I feared causing more harm to the victim. In fact, I was ready to say the case wasn’t suitable for a restorative conference. Still, I met with the child’s mother; although a little nervously. She talked about the fear when her child’s whereabouts were unknown and her relief of being able to hold her child again. She described on-going nightmares and the reluctance to leave her child in anyone’s care. 

The mother also adamantly stated that she wanted to meet with the offender. Honestly, I tried to talk her out of it. I shared my concerns about the attitudes and possibility for more harm. I even asked, “How would you feel if the offender said that there was no harm caused, that there shouldn’t be consequences for a simple mistake?”

Her reply, “I would cry,” reinforced my concerns. But, she still wanted to move forward. She needed to meet with the offender. So, with a great deal of trepidation I continued organising the conference. To my great surprise (and relief) it went well. The mother spoke from her heart and gently challenged the offender. The offender acknowledged some responsibility for the incident. There wasn’t a great revelation or sudden change, but there was understanding and some recognition of the harm. The mother later told us, "…thank you for this opportunity to be heard and hopefully understood by a person responsible for an incident that I have some relief of now. I would not have been able to truly move on without this opportunity."

I’m glad that I released control and followed through with the victim’s desire to meet. The process allows for amazing things to happen. That doesn’t mean that a facilitator shouldn’t take steps to evaluate the situation and provide for the safety of participants. But there are times we need to let go of control and, just like in this case, listen to the needs of the participants. So, in trusting the process, I hope for the best but, anticipating the worst, do as much preparation as possible. 

• Helped to resolve through mediation almost 250 matters within communities without recourse to the authorities or to violence; and 
• Contributed to the release of some 2,000 pre-trial detainees.

Despite these efforts and those of other organisations, the level of pre-trial detainees remains constant as remand in prison is the default mechanism used by the justice system when there is probable cause to send a case to court. 

In a recent proposal for funding, we discussed possible policy changes we could advocate for and really make a difference. One idea was to make mediation or another restorative justice process the default procedure for more minor crimes.  For me, the question became, “What if victims and offenders were offered the opportunity to go through mediation instead of the accused being remanded for a trial that no one could be sure when it would happen?” What would this look like? Even more importantly, what impact could this have on those entering the justice system?

According to my Liberian colleagues, many of the cases they see involve long standing disagreements and conflicts. Liberia is a country that experienced a devastating civil war. Violence and injustice are common experiences in the population. While important, working for the release of pre-trial detainees doesn’t deal with the underlying issues of conflict and crime. These remaining issues could (and do) escalate to the level of a criminal charge yet again. 

A restorative process, on the other hand, allows the parties the opportunity to address both the presenting event that required criminal justice involvement and the underlying causes. They can discuss the emotions, the history surrounding the case, and the specific harms on each side. The restorative process opens the door to imagining a future with the conflicts resolved and the creation of an agreement for how to repair harm and how to respond to future conflicts. 

As I thought about the possible benefits to permitting a restorative process as the default option – diverting the majority of minor crimes away from the criminal justice system, dealing with underlying causes of conflict, and providing more alternatives to the people in Liberia – I thought about the various victims and offenders I’ve talked to over the years. Often, they express as much anger at the criminal justice system as at the offense.  I believe that the option for a restorative process earlier in the system would address many of their concerns and harms including the need for information and the desire to hear directly from the other party.  Of course, this is part of thinking behind the RJ City project that focused on imagining what a fully restorative system would look like. 

So, I say it could be different. Our definition of justice could focus on people and relationships instead of retribution and punishment. We’ve seen small steps toward this as restorative justice processes are more adapted into the criminal justice system. I hope that my colleagues in Liberia can continue in this direction with their work offering mediation as an alternative to formal court processes and the use of pre-trial detention. 

Another reality, that of how prisons and prisoners are often viewed by the public, recently appeared in my RSS feeds in a commentary titled, “What gives a murderer the right to protest prison conditions?” To be fair, the short article is an honest attempt to explore the very real and natural anger one feels over the loss of human life and the values and standards that define us as individuals and a society. But, my initial response to the headline was, “the punishment is deprivation of liberty and not torture or horrible prison conditions.” 

Unfortunately, this is a conversation I’ve had with people in my social circle and my faith community who question why I would choose to work with offenders. I’ve heard arguments such as ‘they are just users’ and ‘they are criminals.’ One that I find frightening is the claim that someone who decides to take a life has lost his/her humanity and therefore deserves to be treated as such. A push back arguing that going beyond the deprivation of liberty means that we lose a bit of our own humanity is just shaken off. The response is always about the personal choices that the “criminal” made. 

As I read about the Honduras prison fire and the protests in the California prison system -- the impetus for the commentary I mentioned -- I come back to the fact that restorative justice offers us something different. It goes beyond the human being as the sum of his decisions to seeing a human being in relationship with other people who has the potential for rehabilitation. A restorative view takes into consideration the needs of victims as well as the treatment of offenders with a vision of helping each of them move on to be positive, contributing members of their communities. It also offers possible transformation for communities as well as individuals. 

None of this is to say that there aren’t consequences for behaviour. Accountability and responsibility are big parts of a restorative response to crime. In my opinion, a restorative view doesn’t deny the necessity of prisons. It does mean that prison would be reserved for cases where it truly was needed to ensure the protection of society. At the same time, prison would serve the role of restoring human dignity and providing offenders the opportunity to deal with the underlying factors that led to their behaviour. As I’ve written before such prisons do exist and serve to help offenders make better choices when returning to their communities. 

Of course, one may question how this would work in a country like Honduras where the murder rate is the highest in the world. The natural fear and sense of helplessness that statistic invokes can make something like mano dura sound good. It can help fuel the arguments of people who take a life don’t deserve humane treatment. However, if we go beyond deprivation of liberty and condone inhumane conditions that lead to more violence, illness, and injustice then we are losing a part of ourselves as well. 

No, restorative justice isn’t a panacea, but it offers a framework for trying to respond to crime in a way to teach human dignity and not take it away. Restorative responses need to be integrated with holistic community strategies to deal with poverty, gang issues, and marginalisation of individuals. Yet, there are experiments in the region that show promise such as the Restorative Juvenile Justice projects in Peru, a project training young people involved in crime as peacemakers in Colombia, and a very recent project to provide community service as an alternative to incarceration in El Salvador (another country dealing with high levels of gang violence). 

One stream of influence that helps maintain punishment’s domination is the “prison industrial complex.” Logan starts his critique of the justice system by explaining how political and business interests come together to create a hunger for longer and harsher sentences, more prisons, and more prisoners. Not only do politicians use “tough on crime policies” to manipulate citizen’s fears into votes, but private companies benefit from prisons in three ways: private prison management, private sector development, and private services provision. For each of these sectors, prisoners mean profits.  One special interest group Logan does not address is the correctional officers unions. According to Joshua Page, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) lobbies heavily in opposition to legislation or policies that would lower the number of prisoners. Further, it sponsors    

a crime victims’ organization that is particularly punitive in its demands.

Images of the offender play a significant role in legitimizing and justifying harsh criminal justice responses. As Skotnicki points out, when we see the prisoner as “a political or moral threat” (p. 23), we open the door for any type of punishment to be imposed. Viewing offenders as less valuable allows us to warehouse and not help them. For Snyder, the Evangelical understanding of “personal salvation” reinforces the foreignness of those caught up in criminal behavior, or “othering,” which in turn enhances the neglect of the marginalized communities from which they came.

This “othering” becomes quite visible when one considers the over-representation of minorities in the prison system. Both Logan and Snyder explain how the American drug laws affect whites and African Americans differently. Logan discusses the development of racism in the United States and how penal sanctions have varied by racial group over time. He quotes a 2003 report showing that “4,810 black males per 100,000 U. S. residents were incarcerated compared to 649 white males” (p. 69). Yet, the problem is not limited to the United States; the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales notes the number of black prisoners went up by 51% from 1999 to 2002, while the overall prison population only rose by 12% (p. 30). 

Furthermore, many prisoners come from difficult backgrounds with a large percentage of female offenders having experienced sexual or physical abuse. According to Logan, 75% of U. S. prisoners have a history of drug or alcohol abuse (p. 98). In describing prisoners in England and Wales, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference reports that 70% of young offenders had the reading level of a seven-year-old (pp. 21-25).

Read the whole article.