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Restorative justice may not work for all young offenders

Nov 18, 2011

from the article by Pamela Snow on The Conversation:

Educating young offenders about the consequences of their crimes is a key way to ensure they don’t re-offend. But bringing them face to face with their victims may not always be the right way to go.

Young offenders often suffer long-term abuse or neglect. They frequently fail to achieve academically, and have few, if any marketable employment skills. They face elevated risks of mental health problems and early and problematic substance abuse.

Restorative justice may not work for all young offenders

....Research in the last decade in Australia, the USA and the UK has also shown that young offenders represent a group at high-risk of unidentified oral language impairments.

In other words, they have problems expressing themselves verbally by accessing appropriate vocabulary, formulating meaningful sentences, and adequately understanding the complex language we often use.

To complicate matters further, much of what transpires between us as speakers and listeners in everyday life is not literal in meaning – we use idioms and a range of other linguistic devices such as sarcasm, irony and various kinds of humour.

My own research has indicated that in both community and custodial samples of young male offenders, such problems reach clinical thresholds in about 50 per cent of cases.

This is not to say that RJC shouldn’t be used with young offenders. But evidence on the oral language ability of this group raises important questions about the extent to which such young people can be assumed to have the skills needed to genuinely engage in a highly conversational process that is intended to be restorative in nature – both for the victim(s) and for the young person.

In the case of young people who have been maltreated and not received the care they need when growing up, one might indeed wonder about what is being restored.

Has this young person ever had empathy displayed towards them when they have been wronged and are distressed? Have they learnt the language of empathy and remorse and how to use this under pressure? If they are unable to access words that express these sentiments, how can they appear genuine in their remorse? How will it be perceived if the young person shrugs his shoulders and gives mono-syllabic responses? What does all of this mean for the young offender’s experience of the RJC and for that of their victim(s)?

Like most social scientists, I am well aware of the evidence that shows us that simply punishing young people for their wrong-doing does not lead to reduced recidivism or the adoption of socially acceptable values and behaviour.

But we need to take great care, and apply high standards of critical thinking, when seeking approaches that are a good philosophical fit with our desire to promote better outcomes for young offenders.

Read the whole article.

Document Actions

Inclusive Practice

Posted by Bonita Holland at Nov 18, 2011 06:22 AM
It is because of the poor language skills that many young offedmers have that I am interested and current,y collecting best inclusive practice in the field. Please make do make contact with me if you come across any inspired and creative adaptations by practitioners working with participants with special needs. I'm currency looking at practical support during preparation meetings for narrative story telling. The facilitator coaches the skills involved in narrative story telling but not the content.

Be Critical

Posted by Victor Ngo at Nov 22, 2011 07:47 AM
I think it is refreshing and important for us to step back and take a look at cases where the process of restorative justice is inappropiate or even cause harm. As a student of a restorative justice course at SFU the environment is always pro restorative justice. We are presented with all the advantages it offers and successful case studies. Restorative justice may be portrayed in a way that could lead one to believe it is the answer to all offenders. This is because in cases where restorative justice had been successful the impact is very rewarding and the emotions can be overwhelming, leading someone to believe every offender should be put through this process. However, sometimes the process of restorative justice may not be appropiate. Sometimes other actions may be necessary, this includes other forms of treatment such as therapy to incarceration. With that said I agree restorative justice has worked in many cases to reduce recidivism and the evidence proves it, however it is important to stay critical for each individual case.

Restorative Justice

Posted by Jesmin Dhillon at Nov 24, 2011 04:56 PM
Restorative justice can give great results that provide healing. While these restoration processes may not be suitable for all cases, we have to understand that it takes time to achieve the results that RJ gives us. With young offenders, we understand that these individuals may not have the skills needed to express themselves and engage in conversations; they may not have received the care they needed as they were growing up. In instances when they were wronged and did not receive empathetic responses towards them, they cannot be expected to show genuine empathy and remorse when they wrong somebody.
RJ simply does not mean having a victim-offender mediation. It is a process to heal and reduce crime. We have to make the effort to learn the root cause of the crime and help individuals at a young age before their aggression and violent tendencies escalate in adulthood. We can help them learn feelings of remorse and empathy to help them understand their wrong-doing. They may shrug their shoulders at the beginning, but by working closely with them we can potentially help them understand and express their emotions effectively. The important thing is to try and then deem if a restorative process is helpful in a certain situation.

- Jesmin, SFU student

Restorative justice may not work for all young offenders

Posted by Marjorie Stanislaw at Dec 01, 2011 10:12 PM
Pamela, Thank you for the very interesting perspective and the insights from yours and others research. Being an advocate of restorative justice and doing a lot of work toward the elimination of poverty in my community, your article really resonated. Where I live, a large majority of juvenile offenders are from poverty,(the statistic is not the same for adult offenders) and there is solid research that children raised in poverty often suffer such sever stress that it impairs their neuropathways for learning language at many levels. Language, verbal and written, is very important for not just "getting by" in todays world, but for "getting ahead" as well. In regard to using restorative practices for juveniles, while mediation may not be a good solution for children with language issues, often times a Circle Process does work. The Circle works because we talk and listen from our hearts. I am involved with a Circle of middle school children (at an after school program) that meets weekly in my community (where 61% of the children are in poverty) and it is amazing what is communicated in the circle, that is not always communicated in the regular class setting. A good circle keeper, in the pre-work should be able to determine if the process is suitable for both the offender and the victim. Thanks again for all your insight!

Restorative Justice

Posted by Carol Crocker at Dec 18, 2011 01:03 PM
More restorative justice needed in Canada; less prisons, please!

dialogue doesn't work for all young offenders

Posted by Duane Ruth-Heffelbower at Dec 31, 2011 11:30 PM
Nothing works for everyone, of course. When we talk about the efficacy of dialogue processes it is important that researchers not mix results from the three dominant models: Wagga Wagga (RealJustice), New Zealand and Fresno. Researchers studying the Wagga Wagga model where meetings are led by a police officer are where most negative reports come from. New Zealand uses a trained youth worker and Fresno uses community volunteers. Meta analyses that mix the three models aren't very useful, unless the aim is to show that dialogue processes don't work as often as they should.

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