Environmental Crimes

Restorative justice and environmental crime victims and perpetrators.

Mangakino awarded $30,000 after restorative justice process

From the article on Environment Waikato: The Mangakino community is to receive $30,000 towards community projects from Taupo District Council (TDC) as part of a restorative justice ruling handed down last week by the Tokoroa District Court over illegal sewage dumping. After a prosecution initiated by Environment Waikato, TDC pleaded guilty to illegally dumping sewage sludge at sites around the town in 2008. The discharges by TDC followed a series of problems with Mangakino’s sewage system. EW consented to a restorative justice process that involved a meeting in Mangakino to work out how a suggested $27,000 fine could be put back into the local community.

McElrea, F W M. The Role of Restorative Justice in RMA Prosecutions.

I was a great surprise but a very great privilege to be this lecture to the RMLA Auckland branch members earlier this year. The topic is certainly one of real interest to me, and I hope it will prove of value to you. With the agreement of Principal Environment Court Judge Bollard I have been encouraging the use of restorative justice processes in a few RMA cases. Two have been completed and others are in the pipeline either here or in the Waikato. There is the potential for a greatly increased use of this approach.(excerpt)

Hamilton, Mark. Restorative justice intervention in an environmental law context: Garrett v Williams, prosecutions under the Resource Management Act 1991 (NZ), and beyond.

This article considers the applicability of restorative justice intervention in the form of restorative justice conferencing to New South Wales environmental law. Although the legislation that confers criminal jurisdiction on the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales does not specifically mention or refer to restorative justice conferencing, it would appear that such conferencing would be one way of achieving the objectives of environmental legislation, and could be considered during sentencing. Guidance can be gained from restorative justice conferencing that has taken place in the New Zealand environmental law context, as well as the seminal decision of Preston CJ in Garrett v Williams (2007) 151 LGERA 92 in the New South Wales context. Restorative justice conferencing may serve as the vehicle through which communication between victim and offender is facilitated, leading to better environmental outcomes. (author's abstract)

Restorative justice and the BP catastrophe

from Carolyn Raffensperger's entry on Science & Environmental Health Network: The BP disaster demands justice. People are looking for asses to kick, ways to make BP–or the government—pay for their failures. Some have argued that we are all to blame because we use fossil fuels. Others argue that the oil industry is solely liable because they were negligent, under-prepared and greedy. These are all demands for a kind of justice that requires retribution. Punish the perps. I share the rage but I think this catastrophe calls for another larger kind of justice. Restorative Justice. Restorative Justice is a theory of justice that “emphasizes repairing the harm caused or revealed by unjust behavior.”

Besthorn, Fred H. Environmental Restoration and Restorative Justice

While an escalating cycle of violence and judicially sanctioned counter violence seems to be the norm for a world gone astray from the impulse of its gentler angels, there are growing signs that many societies are attempting to find a way out of the destructive and repetitive cycles of harm and retribution. The Restorative Justice Movement is one such example of this emerging effort. Restorative justice aims to bring about a fundamental change in modern western cultural response to crime and punishment. The Restorative Justice Movement sprang from the civil rights, feminist, and indigenous freedom movements of the 1960s and 1970s. While these earlier progenitors were largely focused on social transformation, the Restorative Justice Movement has as its primary aim the dismantling of the justice-industrial complex (Johnstone, 2002). This system executes or incarcerates ever increasing numbers of its citizenry in a continually more punitive and depriving environment. Restorative Justice seeks to replace the values of vengeance and retributions with a more humane and morally defensible stance of restoration, healing, and forgiveness. These are thought to be the primary ameliorative paths of crime victims and the only way to "create just communities in which people who are in pain and suffering can heal with dignity" (Sullivan and Taft: 21) and where meeting core humans needs and maintaining primary relationships are created and honored from the outset. (excerpt)

McElrea, FWM. 2006. Auckland City Council v B&C Shaw Ltd. And George Bernard Shaw. Notes of Judge FWM McElrea on Sentencing. District Court at Auckland. CRN: 2004502435, 5003402436.

These sentencing notes discuss the elements of an environmental case in which a property developer was accused of removing a tree from his property that was protected by local ordinance and considered important by community members. In his sentencing notes, Judge McElrea outlines the process of encounter between the defendant and community members, the public expression of apology and desire to make things right, and the agreement developed to respond to the offense.