Principles of Restorative Justice

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Principles of Restorative Justice The 4th Annual
Child Placement Conference Partnerships for
Children and Families Building Interagency
Alliances Presented by Dee Bell, Project
Administrator, Balanced and Restorative Justice
Project, Community Justice Institute, Florida
Atlantic University, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
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Offender
Community Protection
Community
Victim
Competency Development
Accountability
Justice System
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A question?

• What is Peace?

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Another Question?

• What is justice?

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Current System Questions?

• Who committed the act and is it a crime?
• What laws were broken/what actions must be
  taken?
• How will we punish the offender and protect the
  victim?

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What is Restorative Justice?

• Restorative Justice is a process whereby the
  parties with a stake in a particular offense come
  together to resolve collectively how to deal with
  the aftermath of the offense and its implications
  for the future.
• Tony Marshall

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Who are the parties?

• Victims- those who were harmed
• Offenders- those who caused harm
• Community- the place where the harm was committed
• We call the parties- the stakeholders

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Restorative Justice

• Is not a program.
• Is a mission or philosophical framework.
• Is a different way of responding to crime and/or
  harm in families, communities and systems
  especially the criminal justice system.

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Crime is harm.
Justice should be healing.
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Crime Is More Than Lawbreaking

• Crime HARMS
• Victims,
• Communities,
• and Offenders.

It also damages relationships.
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Mutually Exclusive Interests
Offender Interests
Victim Interests
Community Interests
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Finding Common Ground
Offender
Victim
Community
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Van Ness Principles

• If crime is more than lawbreaking, then
• Justice requires that we work to heal victims,
  communities, and offenders who have been injured
  by crime.

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Principle 2

• If crime is more than lawbreaking, then
• Victims, communities and offenders should have
  opportunities for active involvement in the
  justice process as early and as fully as
  possible.

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Principle 3

• If crime is more than lawbreaking, then
• We must re-think the relative roles and
  responsibilities of the government and the
  community. Government is responsible for
  preserving a just order and the community for
  establishing a just peace.

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Repairing Harm Stakeholder Involvement Community
and Government Role Transformation
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Zehrs Questions?

• What is the harm?
• What needs to be done to repair the harm?
• Who is responsible for the repair?

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What is a Balance?
Balance is NOT An equal focus on punishment and
treatment.
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Balancing Stakeholder Needs
Restorative Justice Stakeholders
Victim and family/support group Offender and
family/support group Community
Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems
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Principle 1 - REPAIR
Justice requires that we work to heal victims,
communities, and offenders who have been injured
by crime.
THREE RJ PRINCIPLES
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Defining REPAIR

• Three dimensions
• Fixing What Is Broken/Damaged Compensating
  Those Harmed
• Reintegration of Victim and Offender with
  Community
• Relationship Building
• - Connections made or strengthened between
  victim/offender/community

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REPAIR AND VICTIM NEEDS
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Victims frequently want longer time for
offenders because we havent given them anything
else. Or because we dont ask, we dont know what
they want. So the system gives them door Number
One or Two, when what they really want is behind
Door Number 3 or 4. Mary Achilles
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REPAIR AND OFFENDER NEEDS
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Restorative Accountability
Definition The obligation of the offender to
make it right with victims and victimized
communities.
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Accountability is NOT

• Punishment
• Being responsible to the juvenile justice
  system or juvenile justice professionals

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Restorative Accountability
How Do We Know It When We See It?
The sanctioning process produces accountability
when it ensures that
Offenders take responsibility for the crime and
understand the hurt caused to the victim.
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Restorative Accountability
How Do We Know It When We See It?
Offenders take action to make amends to the
victim by restoring the loss.
Victims and communities have an active role in
the sanctioning process by recommending
obligations and by monitoring, mentoring, and
supporting compliance.
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Restorative Accountability
How Do We Know It When We See It?
Communities support offenders who earn it by
taking responsibility for completing obligations.
All stakeholders and the system place emphasis on
the wrong done and the obligation to make it
right.
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REPAIR AND COMMUNITY NEEDS
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communities should not measure the success of
anycommunity based initiative upon what happens
to the offender (Rather, they should
measure)the impact of community based
initiatives on victims, strengthening families,
building connections within the community, on
enforcing community values, on mobilizing
community action to make the community safer

Judge Barry Stuart
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Reconnecting
Crime weakens relationships
Offender
Victim
Community
Victim
Community
Offender
Restorative justice reconnects
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How Do You Repair The Harm?
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Asking Different Questions

• What is the harm?
• What needs to be done to repair the harm?
• Who is responsible for this repair?

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Principle 2 - Involvement
Victims, communities and offenders should have
opportunities for active involvement in the
justice process as early and as fully as possible.
THREE RJ PRINCIPLES
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Restorative Justice Conferencing Models
Increasing Stakeholder Decisionmaking Inputs

• Family Group Conferencing
• Reparative or Accountability Boards
• Sentencing and Peacemaking Circles
• Victim Offender Dialogue (Mediation)
• Community Conferencing
• Merchant Accountability Boards

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Restorative Justice Theories-in-use
Interpersonal Dialogue

• Empowering and giving voice to victims and
  other Stakeholders
• Gaining information and reassurance
• Apology and acknowledgement of harm and
  wrongdoing
• Human connection
• Expression of feeling/emotions process over
  outcome

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Principle 3 Changing Community/ System
Roles Relationships
We must re-think the relative role and
responsibilities of the government and the
community. Government is responsible for
preserving order. The community is responsible
for establishing peace.
THREE RJ PRINCIPLES
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Why Community?
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Crime (control and prevention) should never be
the sole, or even primary business of the State
if real differences are sought in the well being
of individuals, families and communities. The
structure, procedures, and evidentiary rules of
the formal criminal justice process coupled with
most justice officials lack of knowledge and
connection to (the parties) effected by crime,
preclude the state from acting alone to achieve
transformative changes.
Judge Barry Stuart
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Children grow up in communities, not programs.
Development is most strongly influence by those
with the most intensive, long-term contact with
children and youth family, informal networks,
community organizations, churches, synagogues,
temple, mosques and schools. Development is not
achieved only through services, but also through
supports, networks and opportunities.
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if you are dealing with people whose
relationships have been built on power and abuse,
you must actually show them, then give them the
experience of, relationships based on
respectsothe healing process must involve a
healthy group of people, as opposed to single
therapists. A single therapist cannot, by
definition, do more than talk about healthy
relationships.
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What IS Community?

• Geographically defined units (cities, towns)
• Families and extended families
• Religious congregations
• Schools and colleges
• Workplace
• Union locals
• Clubs, lodges, hobby groups
• Professional groups
• Political groups or parties
• Voluntary groups, e.g., youth service
  organizations
• Neighborhoods

From John Gardner, On Leadership
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Why is the Community Role Important Now?
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(Formal justice system procedures) deprive
people of opportunities to practice skills of
apology and forgiveness, or reconciliation,
restitution, and reparation . . . The modern
state appears to have deprived civil society of
opportunities to learn important political and
social skills.

David Moore
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Defining Community Building

• Three Objectives
• Values Clarification
• Norm Affirmation
• Citizens increase skills in repairing harm,
  informal social control, and social support

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• Participation denied breeds apathy.
• Apathy breeds suspicion.
• Suspicion breeds cynicism.
• Cynicism prevails.

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Conversely, Participation builds
investment.Investment builds a sense of
ownership. A sense of ownership builds a sense
of personal responsibility.A sense of personal
responsibility for thewell-being of the
community prevails.
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Community Justice Core Questions

• What can we do to build a sense of community and
  prevent crime from happening in the first place?
• When a community member violates the trust of
  another, the peace of the community is broken.
  What can we do to restore the victim, the
  community, and the offenders place in the
  community?

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Community Justice
All variants of crime prevention and justice
activities that explicitly include the community
in their processes and set the enhancement of
community quality of like as an explicit goal.
Community justice is rooted in the actions that
citizens, community organizations, and the
criminal justice system can take to control crime
and social disorder.
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Community Justice
Community Building Prevention
Balanced and Restorative Justice
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Community Justice Core Principles
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Sense of Community

• People who share a strong sense of community are
  far less likely to violate the trust of other
  community members.
• Preventive and corrective measures should,
  therefore result in citizens gaining stronger
  sense of being connected to the community.

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Investment

• Participation builds investment.
• Investment builds a sense of responsibility.
  People who share a sense of responsibility will
  go to great effort to see their ideas succeed.
  Citizens, crime victims, and offenders who
  participate in building a safer community can be
  predicted to share a strong investment in the
  outcome of their efforts.

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Reparation

• Crime breaks the peace of the victim and the
  community.
• The justice process should focus on restoring the
  peace for the victim and the community.
• The offender carries the burden to repair the
  harm.
• The primary role of government should be to
  ensure that these reparative expectations are
  fulfilled.

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Earned Redemption

• Offenders who have worked to repair
• harm to victim and community should be
  afforded the opportunity to participate as a
  responsible, productive member of the community.

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Why IT Works
Grounded/Community Theory in the Case of
Neighborhood accountability boards
We arent getting paid to do this. We can
exercise the authority that parents have
lost. We live in their community. We give
them input into the contract. We are a group of
adult neighbors who care about them. They hear
about the harm
from real human beings
us and the
victims. We follow up.
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Restorative Justice Theories-in-use
Community Healing/Capacity Building
Collective responsibility for crime and
repair/healing Inclusion and connection important
in their own right The resolution and healing
lies in the group Sanctioning, rehabilitation,
community safety interventions seamless and
integrated blurred distinctions between quality
of life, community needs, criminal justice and
social justice Emphasis on private and parochial
control and mutual support vs. professionals and
justice system community as driver
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Changing the System and Professional Role and
Focus
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Restorative Justice Redefining the Governments
Role
Traditional Justice System
Restorative Justice System
(Justice Intervention)
(Justice Intervention)
Community
Offender
Victim
Offender

• Services
• Surveillance
• Sanction

• Facilitation
• Community Building

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Community The Justice System The Changing
Relationship
Justice system operates separately from the
community Justice system provides more
information to the community about its
activities. Justice system provides information
to the community about its activities and asks
for information from the community. Justice
system asks for guidance from the community,
recognizes a need for community help, and places
more activities in the community. Justice system
follows community leadership.
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In nature, nothing grows from the top down.
The Chandler Center of Community Leadership
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A Model for Restorative Systemic Change

• A restorative response to every offense no matter
  where it is addressed in the system or community
• A restorative way of accomplishing core system
  goals safety, rehabilitation, sanctioning,
  victim services, prevention etc.

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Whats NEW about Restorative Justice?
NEW Values NEW Stakeholders New Decisionmaking
Processes NEW Performance Objectives NEW Programs
and Practices NEW Staff Roles, Resource
Allocation, and Management Approaches
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So how does it work in your job?

• Lets talk !

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So we make mistakes can you say you (the
current system) dont make mistakesif you dont
think you do, walk through our community, every
family will have something to teach youBy
getting involved, by all of us taking
responsibility, it is not that we wont make
mistakes But we would be doing it together, as a
community instead of having it done for us. We
need to find peace within our livesin our
communities. We need to make real differences in
the way people act and the way we treat
othersOnly if we empower them and support them
can they break out of this trap

Rose Couch, Community Justice
Coordinator