Restorative justice for people who are innocent & wrongfully imprisoned
Mar 14, 2011
from Lorenn Walker's blog:
Recently, I saw how successfully RJ was used by someone who has steadfastly maintained innocence, and who does not take responsibility for the crimes she is in prison for.
The woman is serving several life sentences for crimes that she has denied since being convicted after a trial about 20 years ago. She was 18 when she went into prison and she has not seen two of her now adult children since then. Most of her children want a relationship with her and she wants one with them. The woman learned about restorative justice in a course we provide* in the prison, and she used an RJ process to focus how she could restore her relationship with her children, and address the harm caused them and herself, by her teenage drug use and her imprisonment.
The pain of losing a parent and losing children is huge and often the result when mothers and fathers go to prison. In this case both the children and the mother were able to hear and express their feelings and thoughts. It was a heartwarming process where not only was there some healing of the wounds caused from losing a vital loved one, but the woman also saw her sister for the first time in 18 years.
The woman takes responsibility for continuing to work on repairing her relationship with her children, and maintaining a clean and sober life style. It is consistent with what John Braithwaite and Shadd Maruna, two foremost leaders in justice reform, believe: that we should focus on getting people to address what they can do in the future to make things right and let go of our desire to make people admit guilt.
restorative justice & wrongful convictions
If an innocent man or woman is serving time for a crime he/she did not commit then that is a miscarriage of justice that must be corrected. No victim of crime would want the wrong person to be serving time in prison (or on death row). The victim or victims's family wants the real offender to be held accountable.
Lorenn's blog piece is interesting. There are indeed many "victims" as she notes, including the family of offenders and in this case the family of an offender that could be innocent. (I do not know the specifics of this case).
I do not think it changes the basic thrust of restorative justice processes, however. I think what this points out is the need to get it right. Wrongful convictions are real and in the U.S. are growing. Some 138 innocent men and women have been exonerated in this country. That's appalling.
And at the same time, once a man or woman is exonerated then the real culprit is not held accountable. That is an injustice suffered still by the crime victim and/or their family.
Restorative justice, and the vision it provides, calls for systemic reform of a very broken system. That applies to the U.S. justice system and to many justice systems around the world.
Lisa Rea