Introduction
The article chosen was LeGardeur’s, ‘Restorative
Justice: Mending the Fabric of Society: Advocates
Point to a Better Way to give Victims a Voice
and prevent offenders’ Return to Crime’
which appeared in the National Catholic Reporter
on the 30th of May, 2003.
Synopsis for the article
The article has been especially instrumental to
bringing forth a comprehensive and evaluative
perspective regarding the theory and philosophy
of restorative justice. It is especially relevant
to illustrating the positivistic features and
characteristics of the practice, which is fundamentally
described as being the inducement of absolute
responsibility upon criminal offenders. It would
be noteworthy to consider that restorative justice
primarily differs from the traditional criminal
justice stance upon the pretext of the fact that
the theoretical implications of the latter ascribe
essentiality to enforcing punitive measures upon
criminal offenders. While this is a stance that
has been philosophically tailored with the concept
of societal/community-based eudaemonia as the
topmost priority; restorative justice ‘gives
priority to restoring the community and incorporating
the offender back into it’ (LeGardeur, 2003).
It would, moreover, be worthy of observation to
contemplate that the article manages to effectually
outline the comparative exceptionality of the
restorative justice practice. This is something
that is made especially apparent when considering
it in light of the quote that LeGardeur has integrated
from Joel Dyer’s ‘The Perpetual Prisoner
Machine’, 2000. Once imprisoned, according
to the quotation, prisoners are non-receptive
to all correctional measures and worse, ‘many
will actually begin to exhibit additional criminal
behaviors’. I find the statistical data
that has been integrated within the article especially
usefully in regard to appreciating the societal
advantageousness that LeGardeur indicates is one
of prime features of restorative justice. Take
into account, for instance, the significance of
the article’s assertion that Victim-offender
mediation [restorative justice] reduces recidivism
by 33 per in addition to significantly eliminating
cost (s); ‘the thousands of dollars required
to house, feed, clothe and guard an inmate’
(LeGardeur, 2003).
“The adversary system discourages defendants
from being active and outspoken. It dissuades
them from expressing remorse or meeting with the
victim. Often it creates in the defendant the
feeling that he/she is the real victim, which
is altogether accurate in a minority of cases,
but feeds into many offenders' tendency to deny
the seriousness of the harm they've done their
victims. Little wonder that many in both groups--victims
and offenders alike--feel that the court process
is not about them, but, rather, that it is run
for the convenience and interests of lawyers and
judges.”
--Harmon L. Wray, Restorative Justice: Moving
Beyond Punishment
If longer prison sentences, mandatory sentencing
and truth in sentencing are all part of being
tough on crime and getting justice for victims,
it stands to reason that "alternative sentencing"
programs like restorative justice are soft on
crime and place victims' rights above those of
the victims they've offended. On the contrary,
says Lou Furman, a specialist in restorative justice.
The traditional, or “retributive”,
justice system, he says, revictimizes crime victims
by taking away their voice and their wishes in
framing redress to the crime. A lawyer may eventually
ask questions of the victims, but their ability
to speak is limited to answering the questions
lawyers ask to prove or disprove a legal charge.
At no point in the process, says Furman, does
the retributive legal system ask the victim what
he or she needs to restore the damage done. Restorative
justice, once an alternative concept, is becoming
mainstream thanks to federal mandates. While advocates
welcome the acceptance of this approach to justice,
they also worry that inadequate programs are being
put in place to fulfill government requirements.
“If anonymity is the strength of the system
and the system's not working, there's a problem,”
says Furman. “We want the harm to be made
right for the person who has received harm. We
are not advocate for the person who did the harm.
We are advocate for healing. We are about restoring
relationships.”
Furman and Jean Handley run New Orleans-based
Turning Point Partners, a nonprofit organization
devoted to community building, restorative justice
and “resilience education, a kind of training
that promotes the ability to adapt to change”.
The group is one of approximately 1,400 known
restorative justice initiatives that are putting
a different vision of justice into practice across
the country. Most of the programs, like Turning
Point Partners, are operating in local juvenile
justice systems, though some, like the state-supported
restorative probation in Vermont, bring restorative
justice practices to bear on adult corrections.
Furman and Handley spoke on the topic of restorative
justice at a workshop at Critical Resistance South,
a conference in New Orleans in early April to
discuss the expanding prison industry. "What
the restorative philosophy does is it enables
a human being to take responsibility for what
they've done," said Handley, "and it
allows the victim to tell them, “This is
how your decision affected me.” The key
tools of restorative justice are the victim offender
conference, which can involve support people for
both the victim and the offender, and a mediated
negotiation in which the offender proposes some
type of repayment to the victim and to society.
The result of both meetings is a contract that
becomes part of the offender's sentence. In the
case of a suspended sentence, breaking that contract
can be grounds for sending the offender to jail.
“Ninety-two percent of restitution agreements
[arrived at in victim-offender conferences] are
fulfilled because the person who's trying to make
things right [the offender] has a voice in the
process,” said Handley.
The origins of restorative justice can be variously
traced to Anglo-Saxon tribal law, Native American
practices, the customs of aboriginal New Zealanders,
and the Bible. Whatever its origin, the premise
of restorative justice is beautifully simple.
If society is a fabric of relationships and interdependencies,
an offense, in the restorative justice view, is
an action that rends that fabric. The best way
to repair such a rent is to bring all the parties
with a stake in the offense--including the victim--together
in a situation where everyone can be heard. The
goal is to reintegrate the offender into society
and allow him or her to repair the damage done.
Instead of emphasizing punishment and labeling
an offender as "bad" and an outcast,
the approach gives priority to restoring the community
and incorporating the offender back into it.
How it works
Handley and Furman showed a film in which Thomas
Ann Hines confronts the man who murdered her 21-year-old
son. The meeting took place in 1998 in the Texas
penitentiary where the offender, Charles White,
is serving a 40-year term for intentional murder.
In a halting conversation, Hines tens White how
the 1985 murder affected her. “If you knew
how much I loved him I know you wouldn't have
killed him,” said Hines on tape, crying.
White, who was 17 at the time of the murder, hesitates,
looks away, tries to recount the events of the
night or the murder, and finally cries too. Whatever
Paul Hines was to White on the night of the killing,
by the end of the interview he seems to have become
palpable to White; no longer was Paul Hines just
a faceless victim, but a human being, whose life
White now realized he had stolen. It's hard not
to credit the pain and regret in White's face
as genuine. “He didn't hate Paul. He didn't
hate me,” said Hines in the tape's closing
segment. "He was just walking around with
a loaded gun.” Victim-offender mediation
reduces recidivism by 33 percent, said Handley.
It also saves countless dollars. The average mediation
costs a few hundred dollars, as compared to the
thousands of dollars required to house, feed,
clothe and guard an inmate. Most important, it
restores an individual to society, while numerous
studies have shown that incarceration “prisonizes”
offenders by indoctrinating them into a dog-eat-dog
society whose rules are at odds with those of
the outside world.
The findings of research conducted by sociologist
Donald Clemmer in the 1940s on the effects of
prisonization still apply. "Once prisoners
are assimilated this way ... they are completely
immune to all reform efforts, and worse, many
will actually begin to exhibit additional criminal
behaviors," wrote author Joel Dyer in The
Perpetual Prisoner Machine, published in 2000.
Turning Point Partners has forged a relationship
with Orleans Parish Juvenile Judge Mark Doherty,
who allows them to attend his courtroom and approach
offenders who seem to be good candidates for restorative
justice. The first thing, said Furman, is to find
out if an offender is taking responsibility for
his or her action. "Did you do it?"
asks Furman. "If yes, that is our bottom
line criteria. If they take responsibility, it’s,
90 percent likely we'll go to the public defender
and ask if we can take over the case."
An admission of guilt guarantees that sitting
through the offender’s denials won’t
revictimize the victim. It also lays the groundwork
for the legal proceeding, since the defendant
then pleads guilty to the judge and submits to
the terms of the contract to be worked out with
Turning Point Partners as a condition of probation.
The next step, said Furman, is to get in touch
with the victim to offer the option of being a
part of the proceedings. "We explain that
our intent is for them to have a voice in the
process," said Furman. "When you think
about it, if someone has, say, come into your
house and robbed you, that's such a threatening
experience that they need healing--and they're
not going to get it through traditional punishment
[of the offender]," he said. "If the
person who was harmed can understand why this
happened to them, it's no longer a frightening
thing."
An intervention-style encounter
The team that ultimately assembles may or may
not include the victim. I! does, however, include
everyone in the juvenile's immediate community
who was directly affected by the offense. The
group may include parents, teachers, clergy, far-flung
uncles or godparents; everyone who feels they
have a role in the young person's development.
Everyone in the room takes a turn to say how the
offense has hurt them. It's important at that
point, said Furman, that everyone tell the young
person how the action made them feel, as opposed
to telling the offender what to do. It's also
essential that each speak directly to the offender.
The next step is to shift the tone by asking each
person present to describe something that the
young offender does very well. Often this step
takes the young person by surprise. Finally, the
group pieces together a plan of action that will
allow the youth to make reparations, which may
include money, work or some specific service.
The youth offers his or her ideas first and retains
veto power over the suggestions of others. The
last part is key, said Furman. Often the young
person is harder on himself than others are willing
to be, but it's important that the young person
retain a sense of control over the process. “We
believe it is the community and the family and
the youth who best know how this particular youth
can develop his or her potential, and that if
they were to develop a plan of action for that
youth that it would be the best plan of action.
The youth is part of this, and that's what makes
it work,” said Furman.
With their potential for saving taxpayer dollars
and their emphasis on rescuing young people who
might otherwise be lost to “prisonization,”
restorative justice programs have become very
popular. The U.S. Department of Justice now requires
every juvenile program it funds to have a restorative
justice component, a requirement that has given
the term terrific buzz in justice circles. But
practitioners like Furman and Handley worry that
such a push might cause too many people to adopt
programs that are poorly thought out and label
them “restorative” in an effort to
fall in step with the trend. “Then in five
years they can say, “Ah, restorative justice!
We tried that. It doesn't work,” said Handley.
"Already people are calling restorative justice
all kinds of things that aren't restorative justice,"
said Harmon Wray, who ran the restorative justice
office of the United Methodist church until earlier
this year and also designed a comprehensive guide
to restorative justice practices. “Churches
do it, agencies do it, and governments do it.
It's a hot term that sells.” At the same
time, restorative justice programs--with their
potential to cut both prison costs and recidivism--are
currently falling prey to budget cuts. Wray's
position at the United Methodist church was cut
and responsibilities for restorative justice initiatives
folded into the existing Office of Human Rights.
Minnesota, whose state-supported restorative justice
training initiative was regarded as a national
model, has scaled back from three staff members
to one, though Minnesota's commissioner of corrections,
Joan Fabian, has stated that she remains committed
to restorative justice efforts.
Kay Pranis, who worked as a trainer with Minnesota's
program for nine years, thinks that the move toward
restorative justice is so basic and widespread
that it will survive program and budget cuts.
“Restorative justice work in general is
so grassroots that it's hard to keep track of
what's really going on,” said Pranis. The
most progressive statewide movements, said Pranis,
are in Vermont, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio--states
far from the geographic and punitive culture of
the 12 Southern states chosen as a regional focus
for Critical Resistance South. “One of the
things that's very interesting about this movement,”
Pranis continued, “is that there's no central
leadership, no central coordinating place or force,
but at the same time its a very coherent movement.
I think what that means is we've hit on something
very universal.”
|