Dennis Wong is currently Associate Professor of Social Work and Criminology in the Department of Applied Social Studies at City University of Hong Kong. He teaches criminology, social work practices, and conflict management & mediation.

From 1996 to 1999, he was active in sharing about the usefulness of restorative justice to social work and criminal justice personnel through publishing a Chinese booklet, writing articles in local Chinese journals, and running staff training workshops. In his publications and talks, he translated concepts of restorative justice from Australia and New Zealand into local languages, and further developed its applications in areas such as community policing, youth work and school social work. His writings are considered a foundational work in the restorative justice movement in Hong Kong. In 1999, the first post-police-cautioning victim-offender mediation was conducted by Dennis, and restorative practices became known to the public through television documentary.

In 2000, Dennis set up a Centre for Restoration of Human Relationships and devoted more time to educate teachers, social workers and the general public to use conferencing tactics to tackle school bullying and interpersonal conflicts. In January 2003, he led a group of social work professionals to receive restorative practices training from the International Institute of Restorative Practices in Pennsylvania.

Influenced by John Braithwaite’s Theory of Reintegrative Shaming and Gabrielle Maxwell’s publications about Family Group Conferencing in New Zealand, Dennis has been advocating the use of restorative justice to help youth delinquents be reintegrated into the society since 1996. Since 2003, he has been working closely with Gabrielle Maxwell to see how Family Group Conferences for young delinquents could be developed in Hong Kong.

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Important Idea:

In the Chinese culture, there is an old Cantonese phrase that says “Woo See Lo”. “Woo” means restore. “See” means an event or a case. “Lo” means an elder. The term “Woo See Lo” means an elder playing the role of mediator or facilitator to rebuild relationships between two parties. 

Because Chinese people used to live with kin in a village, elders are respected by all members of the family. Throughout Chinese history, many elders and local community leaders informally act as “Woo See Lo” to mediate conflicts arising from family, community and inter-village disputes…..

“Woo See Lo” goes beyond mediation. In Western countries, the process of mediation means settling disputes through negotiating the best decision for conflicting parties. It may not be equivalent to a process leading to an ultimate outcome of restoring human relationships. The Chinese concept of “Woo See Lo” emphasizes rebuilding harmonious relationships between parties, sometimes at the expense of individual rights.

To prevent the onset of delinquency, we should cultivate the adolescent’s filial piety towards parents or mutual respect between adults and youngsters in the form of ‘respect with love’. An adolescent would, then, be socialized or re-socialized as an inner-directed person, which in turn, would prevent youngsters from engaging in law-breaking behaviors. 

The effort to cultivate an adolescent’s self-control requires the co-operation of the social authorities as well as changes in the criminal justice system and its procedures. To prevent recidivism, a new approach must be considered which should emphasize the concept of Chinese collective responsibility towards crime control (interdependency) as well as advocating the values of forgiveness, interpersonal harmony and family values. 

Taking the cultural findings into consideration, a new non-retributive approach, such as victim-offender mediation programs, is necessary.

(Dennis Wong. From an article written for the International Conference on Conferencing, Circles and Restorative Justice in Minnesota, U.S., Aug, 2002)

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Leading Edge.  Dennis is currently working on alternative measures to the sentencing of children and young people in Hong Kong. He asks two questions:

(1) is restorative justice an appropriate and effective option for treating juvenile offenders?

(2) how can restorative justice be adopted as an alternative to prosecution for young offenders in Hong Kong, China?

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Reach Dennis Wong  at dennis.wong@cityu.edu.hk

 

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