The Potential of Restorative Justice

What kind of role might restorative justice play in the future?

Restorative justice could help military veterans suffering from moral injuries

from Lorenn Walker's entry on Restorative Justice & Other Public Health Approaches for Healing ….Neal Conan National Public Radio (NPR) commentator sums up the difference between moral injury and PTSD nicely: “Whether you call it battle fatigue or shell shock or PTSD, we’ve come to accept that the trauma of combat can leave profound psychological scars. But how do you describe the damage from actions that violate one’s values, but don’t involve trauma, injury from horrific scenes that betray core moral beliefs?” Conan interviewed Marine Tyler Boudeau, and psychiatrist Jonathan Shay who’s worked with veterans for over 20 years in addressing this important question. After treating soldiers like Tyler, Shay said he coined the term moral injury “from the story that the great ancient poet Homer tells of Achilles in “The Iliad.” That is the story of moral injury and the terrible consequences of it.”

Bakht, Natasha. Problem Solving Courts as Agents of Change.

Problem solving courts have expanded rapidly across the United States in an attempt to find new solutions to difficult socio-legal problems. The dispute resolution model of problem-solving courts is founded upon the principles of therapeutic jurisprudence, an approach to the law that regards legal phenomena as having therapeutic and anti-therapeutic consequences.1 Beginning in the area of mental health, this approach has expanded to consider matters within criminal law such as drug abuse and domestic violence and has spread from the U.S. to many jurisdictions. Canada has not yet embraced problem solving courts to the same extent as has the U.S., although there are signs that both federal and provincial governments in Canada are keen to do so. There are currently Drug Treatment Courts (DTCs) in Toronto, Vancouver and St. John and the Canadian Department of Justice announced its plan to create three new DTCs in the next 12 months. Problem solving court processes have also arisen in Canada in cases concerning mental health, aboriginal justice and domestic violence.(extract)

Ptacek, James. Guest Editor's Introduction

Searching for ways to expand options for women who are abused and increase accountability for men who are abusive, a number of feminists have been exploring restorative justice. At their best, the variety of informal conflict-mediation practices now loosely grouped under the rubric of “restorative justice” can be seen as ways of doing community organizing around criminal victimization and other kinds of harm. In theory, these practices seek to decrease the role of the state in responding to crime and increase the involvement of personal, familial, and neighborhood networks in repairing the harm that crime causes. As practiced in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the United States, restorative justice is most commonly applied to crimes by young people, largely property crimes. Restorative practices are not recommended and are even disallowed in many jurisdictions for cases of rape and domestic violence. Nonetheless, there is increasing use of these practices to address crimes of violence against women. Feminists have been examining the dangers and potential benefits of applying restorative justice practices to crimes of battering, rape, and child sexual abuse, raising important challenges for feminist community organizing and for restorative justice. (excerpt)

Restorative justice, policing and the Big Society

from the speech by The Rt Hon Nick Herbert, Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice in England: There has been much talk about restorative justice. We’ve seen encouraging pilots and there’s talk about it not only in this country, but around the world. So why is it that something that offers such encouraging results should not have taken a greater hold in our system? Well, I think it is because we’ve seen evolving over the last few years a criminal justice system that has been very much directed from the centre. We’ve been through the recent era of targets and what has eloquently been described as ‘deliverology’. The idea of managing from the centre, of close direction in order to try and drive up the performance of public services. This was done for benign reasons, but we all know what the consequences were.

An apology is not good enough and neither is a conviction

from the independent review of the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup Playoffs riot: Accountability is most powerful when an individual fully understands the effects of their actions on other people and not just the impersonal state. Some did as soon as they woke up the next day, bewildered and remorseful. Bold acts that drew cheers on the 15th were inexplicable and humiliating on the 16th. Even many of those who felt no remorse felt the lash of global village justice in all its forms. Remorse, no matter how sincere, is not enough. We had a deal: we respected them and they respected us. They broke that deal on June 15 (albeit impulsively in many cases) and a price must be paid. There are strong and widespread views that the criminal justice system is not up to the task because it is too slow and too weak. But another, more apt reason is that it is too impersonal. A guilty plea and imposition of a fine teaches nothing of the harm that’s been done.

. Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and Transitional Justice in a Restorative Justice Context.

There is much debate about which interventions are most effective at rebuilding societies, and the international community has struggled to find acceptable, affordable, and sustainable ways to help communities recover from violence. While criminal prosecutions of war crimes are still an important transitional justice tool, over time several limitations with the traditional retributive justice approach have emerged. In a range of post-conflict settings, trials can be politically unfeasible, and the rule of law is often weak, underdeveloped or suffering from corruption. There are problems of jurisdiction, and the evidentiary rules governing court proceedings can limit investigation into the nature of human rights violations. Furthermore, trials are not victim-centered. In response to these problems, truth and reconciliation commissions have emerged as a restorative justice-based alternative to assist societies to confront their past and are now considered a core transitional justice intervention. (excerpt)

Anderson, S. Willoughby. The Past on Trial: Birmingham, the Bombing, and Restorative Justice.

The community, media, and scholarly responses to these trials point to the way that a crime's effects can reach far beyond the individual perpetrator and victim. In the context of unresolved civil rights-era violence, one murder or bombing inevitably expands outward and into the larger story of segregation and massive resistance; into the systemic, racially-based injustices of southern law enforcement; and to the New South's willingness to move quickly forward without reconciling its troubled past. Restorative justice theory, a reform movement within the criminal justice system, can help contextualize the broad consequences of these crimes. Taking the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing as an example, I use restorative justice theory to expand the concept of harm resulting from this one incident. Rather than understanding the crime in traditional terms as an abstract harm against the state, we must imagine it as an act with consequences for the victims, the community at large, the offenders themselves, and the relationships among all three. By viewing this larger harm through the lens of restorative justice theory, we can expand our concept of 'victim,' and explore the need to think creatively about extrajudicial remedies that may to restore the damage wrought by crime. (excerpt)

Farbiarz, Russell E.. "VICTIM-OFFENDER MEDIATION: A NEW WAY OF DISCIPLINING AMERICA'S DOCTORS"

This Article argues that medical boards need to change their policies and integrate the views of aggrieved patients into the medical disciplinary process. Thus, the most effective way to accomplish this goal is for the medical board to implement a victim-offender model of mediation to meet the needs and feelings of aggrieved patients. Part II explains the concept of victim-offender mediation, and its roots in restorative justice. Part III explores the transformative and narrative theories of mediation and explains how these mediation theories inform the victim-offender mediation model. Part IV introduces the legitimacy and process of medical discipline. Part V discusses a victim-offender style mediation model implemented by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine, and concludes with a discussion of the benefits that victim-offender mediation offers to the medical disciplinary system.(excerpt)

Gibbs, Meredith. Using restorative justice to resolve historical injustices of Indigenous peoples.

This article explores the application of restorative justice to situations of historical injustice. It argues that applying restorative justice practices and principles could maximize justice for Indigenous peoples by, first, refocusing Indigenous land claims on the restoration of tribal respect and dignity rather than on the restoration of property rights, and second, acknowledging the wider social relationships in which such conflicts arise. This article also contends that using restorative justice in situations of historical injustice may impact on the practice of restorative justice itself. First, the roles and relationships of key players will change which may lead ultimately to a reconsideration of the role of the State in restorative justice. Second, applying restorative justice in situations of Indigenous historical grievances underscores the collective nature of such conflicts and the collective, contextual nature of evolving notions of the justice in restorative justice.

Debating restorative justice

Chris Cunneen and Carolyn Hoyle. Debating restorative justice. Oxford and Portland, OR: Hart Publishing. 2010. 195 pp. £15.00 (ISBN 13: 9781849460224) reviewed by Martin Wright This is the first of a new series of law books, each containing two essays of about 30,000 words on different sides of a current debate. Carolyn Hoyle suggests that there is more talk than action, and some of the action called restorative is actually punitive, such as the community service performed in conspicuous clothes. In her discussion of communitarianism she regards community participation as the presence of supporters and others at a restorative conference, but does not refer to the involvement of independent voluntary-sector mediation services (and admittedly they are thin on the ground). She considers that communitarians go too far in rejecting the state. In her view restorative justice and criminal justice are complementary: courts are necessary if the accused doesn’t admit involvement. This is true; Hoyle does not exclude the use of prison for retribution, but surely in a fully restorative system the courts would impose reparative, not punitive, sanctions. She does not explore whether these should try to be proportionate to the offender’s culpability or the harm suffered by the victim.

Porter, Thomas W.. The Spirit and Art of Conflict Transformation: Creating a Culture of JustPeace

The Spirit and Art of Conflict Transformation is an overview of the theology, theory, and practice of conflict transformation...For me, the work of conflict transformation is not the work of putting Band-Aids on the wounds of conflict, or responding to conflict like a fire fighter. This work is about a way of life and the transformation of our culture to a culture of justpeace. The book is divided into two parts: the first about preparing ourselves, and the second about how we engage others in conflict transformation. (Excerpt)

Penal Reform International. Avant projet diagramme des problemes

abstract unavailable

Haller, Linda. Restorative lawyer discipline in Australia.

This Article first provides a brief history and overview of lawyer4 discipline in Australia. Brown and Wolf believe enormous changes would be needed to introduce a consumer protection model of lawyer regulation in the United States.5 As will be seen, in Australia, legislative supports for consumer protection and restorative responses to complaints about lawyers are well established. However, the melding of these on top of a disciplinary system has proven problematic. Nor do these legislative supports necessarily reflect the current preferences of regulators. Rather, some regulators of lawyers in Australia appear to have shunned formal, structured processes (like mediation) and instead have fashioned less stable powers for themselves out of “public interest” discretions, which they hold under the relevant legislation.6 The Article then highlights steps in the journey of a complaint from dissatisfaction to formal discipline. The aim here is to identify particular points in the escalation of a complaint where a restorative approach could be particularly beneficial for complainants or lawyers complained about, more likely to achieve restorative outcomes or the approach more easily put into action. The Article will demonstrate the benefits of applying a restorative approach at the very earliest opportunity, when the complaint is received by a lawyer or law firm and before it escalates to a formal, external complaint. The Article goes on to discuss the question of compensation in lawyer discipline. Disciplinary systems in Australia have had the power since the 1980s to award compensation while simultaneously disciplining lawyers in the same proceedings.7 A restorative approach might assume that compensatory and disciplinary outcomes could be on the table at the same time as part of a possible suite of outcomes from a restorative conference. However, the granting of compensatory powers to disciplinary tribunals has proven problematic for Australian tribunals. The Article explores these problems and considers their implications for restorative justice. (excerpt)

Philpott, Daniel. Just and unjust peace: An ethic of political reconciliation.

In the wake of massive injustice, how can justice be achieved and peace restored? Is it possible to find a universal standard that will work for people of diverse and often conflicting religious, cultural, and philosophical backgrounds? In Just and Unjust Peace, Daniel Philpott offers an innovative and hopeful response to these questions. He challenges the approach to peacebuilding that dominates the United Nations, Western governments, and the human rights community. While he shares their commitment to human rights and democracy, Philpott argues that these values alone cannot redress the wounds caused by war, genocide and dictatorship. Both justice and he effective restoration of political order call for am ore holistic, restorative approach. Philpott answers that call by proposing a form of political reconciliation that is deeply rooted in three religious traditions -- Christianity, Islam, and Judaism -- as well as the restorative justice movement. These traditions offer the fullest expressions of the core concepts of justice, mercy, and peace. By adapting these ancient concepts to modern constitutional democracy and international norms, Philpott crafts an ethic that has widespread appeal and offers real hope for the restoration of justice fractured communities. From the roots of these traditions, Philpott develops six practices -- building justice institutions and relations between states, acknowledgement, reparations, restorative punishment, apology and, most important, forgiveness -- which he then applies to real cases identifying how each practices redresses a unique set of wounds. (Publisher's description)

Cunneen, Chris and Hoyle, Carolyn. Debating restorative justice.

In this first volume of the series Carolyn Hoyle argues that communities and the state should be more restorative in responding to harms caused by crimes, antisocial behaviour and other incivilities. She supports the exclusive use of restorative jsutice for many non-serious offences, and favours approaches that, by integrating restorative and retributive philosophies, take restorative practices into the 'deep end' of criminal justice. While acknowledging that restorative justice appears to have much to offer in terms of criminal justice reform, Chris Cunneen offers a different account, contending that the theoretical cogency of restorative ideas is limited by their lack of a coherent analysis of social and political power. He goes on to argue that after several decades of experimentation, restorative justice has not produced significant change in the criminal justice system and that the attempt to establish it as a feasible alternative to dominant practices of criminal justice has failed. This lively and valuable debate will be of great interest to everyone interested in the criminal justice system. (publisher's description).

Humphreys, Rob and Wright, Fran. Restorative Justice: Reconciliation for a Hurt Generation

Restorative justice was developed in Australia as a more satisfactory alternative to punitive approach of Western models of justice and punishment. It has had demonstrable benefits in both less formal and more formal contexts. This study shows how it offers a way of being faithful to God's concern for the restoration of relationships in justice, outlines its benefits and offers practical guidelines to its implementation in a youthwork context. (excerpt)

More equal societies do better at almost everything

from Ben Duncan's entry on Ben's Bookshop: The Spirit Level by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson is a statistical romp through the data on a range of social ills: mental ill-health, teenage pregnancy levels, poor life expectancy, levels of crime and violence in society, and so on, and it finds something that is either remarkable, or stands to reason, depending on your perspective. In short, Picket and Wilkinson conclude, the more equal a society is - the smaller the gap between the richest and poorest, in other words - the better that society performs, at pretty much everything, for pretty much everyone.

Delattre, Gerd. The beginning of a wonderful friendship? – Sports and RJ-Public Relations

A tentative partnership between restorative justice and sports in Germany was forged back in 2006 when the German Soccer Federation was connected to a symposium on restorative justice in Berlin. Since then, mediation has offered a potential solution to the problems of vandalism and violence at sports events, problems that have traditionally been handled by so-called sports courts contained in the umbrella of sports organizations. Although funding may pose a problem, there is a definite potential future in an alliance between sports and restorative justice.

Dominicus, Hans and De Souter, Vicky and Van Garsse, Leo. Collaboration practitioners – policy-makers: Possibilities to be explored – limits to be taken into account

Development of Restorative Justice does not only depend on the quality of the performed practice. The chances of practice to survive and to grow largely also have to do with networking and structural collaboration. The introduction of RJ-methods should not only be supported by a few enthusiastic initiators, but ideally has to be embedded in a global policy. Therefore it is frequently said that “bottom-up”-collaboration of practitioners with policy-makers is close to a “conditio sine qua non” - an absolute requirement - for implementing Restorative Justice. But is this at all feasible? The aim of the workshop was to explore the possibilities, the challenges but also the risks and pitfalls. (excerpt)

A challenge

from the entry on Restore: I’m listening this morning to the slew of financial statistics–housing starts, unemployment rate, bank closings, those without health care, bankruptcies, houses in foreclosure…. It seems to me that restorative justice needs to come up with an index of its own: one that marks the measure of social justice. Are we moving closer or further away from our goal of less reliance on prisons, improving social relationships in our communities, looking at how well or how poorly alternatives to incarceration are funded? What is the ratio between expenditures on prisons vs. what we spend on schools? What is the ratio of crime to poverty? Number of dispute resolution programs to police officers?