Restorative terminology: A modest proposal

Bravo, Dan, well-put. I think you have articulated the dilemma very well and I agree with your distinction between, and use of, terminology. Nicely done.

I like this. The field and movement has gotten to the point where we need more language and to describe what we mean. It started out the RJ was only for criminal cases, and we have seen its successful application for civil cases (e.g. John Braithwaite's Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulations; family group conferencing, etc.). I think using these suggested terms to articulate more specific applications is helpful. Thanks for the post Dan!

Thanks, Dan. Interesting post. I do not think that efforts to promote civility are restorative justice, per se. Glad to see it, however! It seems restorative justice is indeed becoming popular enough that many outside the justice system are seeking to adopt the values of it. That's good. <br /> <br />I think it is very important that restorative justice continue to focus primarily on the need for systemic reform of the criminal justice system. We are so far from achieving any goals that would transform justice systems <br />in the U.S. or anywhere around the world. Thus,the work continues. And we must be diligent! <br /> <br />I like &quot;restorative justice practices&quot; although that part of the &quot;movement&quot; is not my forte or interest. I guess any time we move towards &quot;diluting&quot; the work which seeks to heal victims, and communities, as much as possible and hold offenders accountable which can lead to tranforming their conduct then I am not in favor. <br /> <br />There is far too much need inside our broken justice systems thus I press on with a full commitment to restorative justice and hope others do the same. <br /> <br /> <br />Lisa Rea

Ted Wachtel and the folks at IIRP have done a seamless job of helping me think about and communicate the ideas of restorative practices and restorative justice to others. <br /> <br />Restorative living is an ideal that one would do well to aspire to, model and encourage our children to value. Yet, as an ideal, we (and our children)are still left with a lot of wishful thinking as well as having to come face-to-face with vexing disappointments. <br /> <br />If I remember correctly, Howard Zehr commented in class that the concept of restorative thinking is founded on a basic human interest in give-and-take that keeps aboriginal people's communities intact and relatively stable. If we look at how these cultures are regularly exploited as a result of their mores I would not get too comfortable with the idea of restorative thinking; except in the context of an established communal culture.

I respect the desire to focus on systemic reforms, primarily the in the justice system. My concern, however, is that RJ advocates and practitioners might become too insular, too inwardly focused. Some of the focus needs to be directed toward the resources of the larger communities in which RJ is practiced. It seems to me that there needs to be a constant effort to educate justice-minded people about RJ, and to encourage them to learn more about this powerful practice. Ideally, some of these people would want to become advocates for RJ in the larger community. For many reasons --- not the least of which are capacity-building and volunteer recruitment --- I believe it is crucial that RJ always keep an eye toward increasing awareness and support among the electorates which might provide crucial political advocacy.

I think Dan’s proposal for “restorative living” is an interesting way of expanding the general consciousness about restorative justice and restorative practices. Thanks Dan, for acknowledging my own definitional efforts with regard to the distinction between RJ and RP. I go a bit further in defining RJ. From my perspective, restorative justice can include responses to crime and other wrongdoing, not only in the criminal justice system, but in any context. RP includes &quot;restorative justice practices&quot; the term Lisa Rea noted in her earlier post, but also involves proactive or preventative efforts to establish relationships and restore community in an increasingly disconnected world.

Hi Dan, <br />This is a very helpful way to delineate the various &quot;restorative&quot; approaches. Thank you for articulating it so clearly. I struggled with how to frame some of this for a keynote address I delivered last month where I wanted to get the audience to think more broadly about using restorative practices and to move from being &quot;a community with a restorative justice program&quot; to being a &quot;restorative community&quot;. Not sure I got the message across, but I'm hopeful that we'll move more and more in that direction. (in case you're interested, I posted the keynote address on my blog - you can find it at <a href="http://melaniegsnyder.com/blog" rel="nofollow">http://melaniegsnyder.com/blog</a>) Anyway - thanks again for the insight and continuing inspiration to &quot;restorative living&quot;. <br />Peace, <br />Melanie

I like restorative living and restorative practices, Dan and Ted. Then we should also like justice as something that matters much more widely than in criminal law. Clearly it matters in civil law too, but also much more widely still. For those of us who work on peacebuilding, we must work for a just peace, otherwise it will not be sustainable peace. Yes, a peace based on respect, responsibility and reconciled relationships, but also a just peace, that takes seriously the structural injustice that led to war. The justice part gives the social movement for restorative justice more philosophical edge and purpose than say the old movement for Alternative Dispute Resolution. Yet that does not deny space for restorative practices and restorative living in the pragmatics of education and program advocacy in contexts where restorative justice does not resonate.

I really appreciate this discussion. John, knowing you, I am sure that your concern for wanting to ensure a &quot;just peace&quot; to address the structural injustice of war, also applies to the criminal justice system's structural injustices, e.g. bias and discrimination reflected in the disproportionate number of poor, uneducated and people of color imprisoned that others with higher social economic status avoid in America; and that &quot;restorative justice&quot; describes what we should all get, regardless of our status or any labels assigned to us, when we become involved with the criminal justice system. Thanks again for great post Dan and everyone's comments!

Thanks, Dan, for the effort in trying to bring some clarity to restorative justice terminology. On the the other hand, discussing what the terms mean is useful as an ongoing dialogue. <br /> <br />I would respectfully disagree about the limitations of the &quot;justice&quot; aspect to mere criminal justice. &quot;Justice&quot; is too important a term to be relegated to western justice systems. I offer an example from the work of an Icelandic academic: <br /> <br />&quot;There is no dearth of interest in justice in academic circles. Since the ancient Greeks, ques- tions of justice have riveted the attention of almost every major philosopher. In the last few decades justice has come to the fore as a research topic in psychology and sociology and Kohlberg’s interest in justice, understood as a rationally grounded, overarching moral principle, placed justice firmly on educational agendas. In the post-Kohlbergian era, two major trends in values education still extol justice as a fundamental virtue to be transmit- ted to students: Proponents of ‘citizenship education’ highlight justice as a public, demo- cratic virtue, while proponents of ‘character education’ champion the virtuosity of justice as a personal, pre-institutional character trait.&quot; (Kristj&aacute;nsson, K. (2003). The development of justice conceptions and the unavoidability of the <br />normative. Journal of Moral Education, 32, 183–194. <br /> <br />Wouldn't it make sense that if we focussed on being more just as individuals, we'd have a more just society? Limiting the term &quot;justice&quot; to a system would negate the idea that justice starts with each and every one of us, within a &quot;restorative living&quot; context. I like Jarem Sawatsky's characterization of this as the &quot;primary&quot; level of restorative justice, with criminal justice conflicts falling in the tertiary level of RJ. <br /> <br />Just some thoughts from the westcoast of Canada.

Dan continues to challenge the movement with new ideas and proposals (the only things that is modest about them though is Dan)! <br /> <br />Like any practice, RJ has its own philosophical basis. Questions about what qualifies a practice to be &quot;restorative&quot; should be different from what is the RJ philosophy. <br /> <br />I have argued that more work needs to be done on developing a concrete RJ philosophy (which should include things like &quot;how we live our lives&quot;). But before we do that a meta-theory needs to be developed i.e. where does the RJ philosophy belong? Is it part of the Utilitarian, Liberal etc School of Thought and if not then is it a new Theory of Ethics. If it isn’t a theory of Ethics then is it just a theory of justice? <br /> <br />An example could be the Republican Theory of Dominion advanced by John Braithwaite and Philip Pettit (1990). Their theory belongs to what i call second circle of theories, because it can provide a general framework for evaluation of the criminal justice system as a whole. <br /> <br />Let us assume that we accept the many views in the restorative literature about the existence or the formation of a complete Restorative Paradigm. Then naturally we have to examine RJ’s viability as a theory of political morality and ethics. Can RJ teach us how individuals should relate with the Sovereign? Surely, it can show us how to amend our relationships with individuals or groups of individuals in our communities. But can it teach us how to behave towards the centralised authority that co-ordinates the living of all entities in a community? Can it show us how to lead our lives? Does it distinguish a telos that we should pursue so that we make our lives meaningful and worthwhile? <br /> <br />I have argued elsewhere that RJ has to fall within the second circle of justice theories. For the time being, it cannot be anything broader (such as a theory of life: first circle), or narrower (such as a theory of punishment: third circle). RJ theory can provide a framework for evaluation and de-(re)construction of the justice system in its entirety (e.g., police, courts, and judiciary), and can address issues that might arise throughout the justice process. However, RJ needs to pass one more tests before it is safely placed within this circle. If it is indeed a justice theory, which can introduce a new paradigm that can address issues of justice, then what reassurances do we have that it is indeed an original paradigm and not a reproduction or another hybrid of the Punitive Paradigm, which is currently, the dominant way of understanding and dealing with crime? <br />No doubt, that the traditional punitive paradigm of our criminal justice systems has served as the core element of inspiration and creation of what we call “criminal law theories.” In fact, the Punitive Paradigm has made it almost impossible to define “crime”, without using the guidelines <br />of criminal law, as this is principally the result of criminal law theories. That is why the exclusion or inclusion of an action in the category of “crime” is dependant on the way criminal law theories inter-pret it. Therefore, the question we should ask is: “Is RJ a criminal law theory?” If we conclude with a positive answer, then RJ is indeed founded upon the Punitive Paradigm and therefore it cannot be original but merely another version of the traditional paradigm or at most another hybrid.

I like Dan's idea,and the discussion that it has generated, a lot. In South Africa we've recently taken a similar step in this direction in our RJ National Policy Framework in making distinctions between restorative approaches (to include initiatives such as non-custodial sentencing), restorative practices (to refer to conflict resolution processes and restorative justice processes), and interventions that contain restorative elements, to refer to behavioural and cognitive change interventions. <br />Adding restorative living to these terms sounds great!

Thanks Dan for your proposals of language as RJ moves into more areas where people interact as in schools. I work mainly in schools and have wondered about what terminology to use when talking about RJ. I like using 'restorative justice in schools' because it unmasks the reason why there are disproportionate numbers of youth of color being punished and pushed out of schools. It reminds me and hopefully others that the underlying causes of much of the punitive actions meted out to students stem from an unawareness of one's use of power. This reminder is crucial when one is considering suspending and expelling young people, mostly poor and economically disadvantaged persons who are caught in an world that has been passed down for generations. Is it justice to not provide education to youth who are struggling just because they do not arrive in uniform; or have broken these school rules 20 times which equals to them being processed for expulsion? Where is the justice in schools? <br />For me the word justice is very helpful because it helps me to keep in mind that we are working with young people and they have alot more time to grow and that I have to consider that what I do now affects their whole lives. <br />Thanks again Dan. I look forward to meeting you one day. <br />

A couple of observations. <br /> <br />We don't really have a 'justice system'; what we have is a legal system. To make the grade as 'just', a system or event must be characterised by equality, mercy, compassion, non-judgement, healing and restoring to full, life-giving, peaceful, interactive human function. <br /> <br />Rather than put 'restorative justice' up against the common'justice as we know it', perhaps we should be spending effort to restore justice to the term 'justice'. <br />Wisdom literature doesn't use the term 'restorative justice'; rather, it uses the term 'justice' assuming we know what that means. I'd like to see us successfully return to an awareness, understanding and practise of 'justice' in our legal, educational, domestic, social, economic, political and every other 'system' we have created. This, of course, is the great and difficult task of life; 'how shall we live'? If we surrender the ego with its intellect to the great Wisdom teachings, we will life justly. That means personal and, thus, national and international transformation of the mind, reason, and 'soul' (by whatever term you may like that deep inner Centre to be known). That willing surrender seems difficult for us to achieve. But it is the very stuff of every great religion's quest. It is also the stuff of every human person's lifelong struggle, albeit rarely known as such to the conscious mind; the struggle for meaning and purpose; for identity and value; for resting in the deepest possible experience of belonging in and to the great oneness of all that is. I wonder that as we begin to experience that surrender - a state immeasurably more powerful than all of our human 'system's put together - would we also become aware (and, thus, capable) of justice and, thus, restoration?

A late addition here - but hopefully in the spirit of reigniting this important discussion for the start of 2012 - Happy New Year everyone. <br /> <br />Following a fascinating series of seminars focussing on restorative approaches in schools that I was recently privileged to host, I have come to the conclusion that many of us in the RJ community are perhaps trying to make the words do too much work. <br /> <br />For me, restorative has to mean restoring to something - therefore it has to be about post-harm situations. Whilst many of us who feel the power of this process want to think that it has a wider application (perhaps even offering a Modus Vivendi) there is a real danger in the concept coming to mean everything and nothing. The big question is what we are restoring to. In a situation where harm has been done, then it is clear that we are restoring the wellbeing of the person who has been harmed, and hopefully restoring the one who has harmed back to their community as a valued member. In a situation where no harm has been done, can we still talk about restoration? For this to be the case, we would need to have a clear idea about of the kind of society we want to restore everyone to. This is where the concept starts to unravel. Too much is asked of it. Would our restored society prioritise sustainability? reduction of poverty? education for all children of the world? All of the above? If so, then what does RJ have to offer that is distinct from the work of other groups who advocate human rights, religious values or ethical living? <br /> <br />I can accept that generalised harm is being done in the world on a grand scale, with those of wealth and privilege maintaining and extending their advantages at the expense of the poor and the dispossessed. Structural and symbolic violence are endemic in our society. It is a life’s work to do whatever possible to bring about transformation and social justice. But does this have to be about restoration? It is not possible to be transformative and restorative at the same time - linguistically and conceptually this doesn't make sense. Perhaps we need other concepts to do this work for us. Whilst it is imperative to transform our ways of relating, personally, socially and globally, does this require the concept of restorative living? I would argue that restorative justice is a powerful and potentially life-changing process that can be applied to post-harm situations. For it to be effective lots of other things also need to be in place (pro-social skill development in schools…. freely available health care including counselling and drugs rehabilitation…. localised democracy….. alternatives to capitalism……). Perhaps we need to abandon the idea that all of this is restorative, and go back to the idea that RJ is a powerful tool for doing certain things, and can help to bring about the transformation of human relations, personally socially and globally, alongside a range of other tools strategies and related values systems. <br />