Taiwan

Provides a listing of articles on restorative justice developments in Taiwan. Articles appear in the order in which they were added to the site with the most recent appearing first.

A contradiction and an alliance among restorative justice theories, feminism and Confucianism: From Taiwan's experience

from the paper by Hsiao-Sen Huang: This paper aims to discuss a theoretical contradiction and to explore a possible alliance among restorative justice theories, feminism and Confucianism, with a focus on restorative justice practice in family violence cases. In addition to drawing on literature, this paper will undertake qualitative analyses on the interviews with six facilitators in Taiwan Restorative Justice Pilot.

Taiwan hopes Japanese comics can teach prosecutors

from AFP: Taiwan has asked its prosecutors to read a Japanese comic book dealing with compassion and tolerance in an effort to improve their work performance, an official said Wednesday. The justice ministry has distributed 2,000 copies of the Japanese manga "Love" based on the true story of how a bereaved mother reconciled with a family whose sixth-grader son killed her boy. The touching story was made into a critically acclaimed television series in Japan that was aired on the island last year.

Taiwan forum on restorative justice

Shiuh-Jeng Wang and Frank Fu-Yuan Huang and Da-Yu Kao . Persistence and desistance: examining the impact of re-integrative shaming to ethics in Taiwan juvenile hackers.

The Internet community has been addressing the unethical behavior of juvenile delinquents for years. Nevertheless, the concepts of hacker shame and ethics have received little empirical study from a theoretical perspective in the field of cyber criminology. Braithwaite's re-integrative Shaming Theory posits that it can restrain individuals from committing future offenses, and that those who participate in this shaming process are less likely to consider breaking the law in the first place. Among the abundance of criminological theories, the re-integrative Shaming Theory may be the most suitable theory to restrain hacker activities. This study focuses on the working relationship between nine juvenile delinquents and the shaming mechanism applied to them. However, applying this approach to reduce recidivism among computer hackers requires a great deal of time and effort. It is proposed that the state of shame or remorse is associated with the compounded affective processes of hacker ethics. The proposed solution creates a code of ethics for hackers, distinguishes right from wrong, and ensures a greater success for Braithwaite's re-integrative shaming methods. This paper discusses the problems and solutions related to the Shaming Theory, as well as their usefulness in the context of community-based restorative justice. It is argued that re-integrative shaming, without appropriate consideration for the offender's personal code of ethics, is insufficient when handling hacking offenses committed by juveniles. Our main concern is to find out how to help or encourage the offender's reintegration and re-entering into the community, and how s/he can avoid failure. It is hoped that our proposed strategy can prevent future offending behaviors by these juveniles. Implications drawn from the findings are discussed, and suggestions are offered to ensure the success of this theory when applied to juvenile hackers. (author's abstract)

Hsiao-Fen Huang. A contradiction and an alliance among restorative justice theories, feminism and Confucianism: From Taiwan Experience.

This paper aims to discuss a theoretical contradiction and to explore a possible alliance among restorative justice theories, feminism and Confucianism, with a focus on restorative justice practice in family violence cases. In addition to drawing on literature, the paper will undertake qualitative analyses on the interviews with six facilitators in Taiwan Restorative Justice Pilot. An important contradiction among these three theories is shown in the literature, referring to the roles of and relationship among three key players: individuals, community (including family), and the state. This paper will elaborate three elements of this contradiction: (1) The nature of the relationship among these three players, (2) Who is the key player in dealing with family violence? (3) What are the principles on which the key players are operating? Further through Taiwanese facilitators' interpretation of restorative justice, a possible alliance of these three theories will be drawn out, demonstrating what the roles of and relationships among key players would be. However, this alliance is likely formed at the expense of certain vital aspects of each theory. Accountability for wrongdoing could be compromised in restorative justice theory, women's obedience in COnfucianism, and intervention of the state in feminism. (author's abstract)

Cheng-Dar Huang and Yu-Shu Chen and Chuen-Jim Sheu. An empirical study on restorative affecting factors for penal mediation -- A restorative justice perspective.

Penal mediation has a long history in Taiwan. It is part of local autonomy administration and has the function of auxiliary justice、restoration、diversion and high acceptance by the public. They are two purposes for this study: to find out whether the penal mediation contains the elements of restorative justice and to find out the affecting factors that could maximize the benefits of penal mediation. Two research methods are used. It interviewed 3 mediation commission chairpersons and 3 mediation commission secretaries. It also surveyed 498 mediation participants. The results of in-depth interview show that interviewees used “social conflict＂ rather than “crime＂ to view the mediation case under mediating，and penal mediation contains the elements of restorative justice, diversion, emotional release ,harm reduction and relation rebuilt. It is very important that the mediation members hold an attitude of rationality and fairness in order to achieve mediation agreement. Survey results show that more than 80% percent of the respondents positively responded to procedural satisfaction，result satisfaction ,restoration and identification with the mediation system. In addition, if there are sufficient opportunity for interactive dialogues and conciliation among participants, the mediation results are better. Multiple regression indicates that subjective procedural factors(attitudes toward the mediation commission members), and the objective procedural factors(the meeting was conducted in a circumscribed location, the amount of monetary restitution, the number of times the mediation was conducted and the length of time the meeting was conducted) are the major affecting factors of penal mediation success. It is therefore suggested that mediation meeting which is conducted in a circumscribed location, participants are able to release their emotions, commission members are fair and rational, these factors are able to increase the power and will of participants’ restoration. It is also suggested that interactive dialogues among participants should be encouraged. (authors' abstract)