Restorative Justice

    I. Definition of Restorative Justice

Restorative Justice is a kind of revolutionary mediation practice dealing with conflicts between victims and offenders. The implication of restorative justice can be range from crime, school, and family to organization. In the field of education, restorative justice helps to reduce misbehaviors in school, the numbers of bullying, school violence and crime among students and improve the climate of learning. The participants are not only offenders and victims who are often teachers, school staff, bystanders and other students, and the school community, but also other persons related to the incidents like parents and consultants. Thus, the conflict can be solved in collaborative way.

The objectives of restorative justice in school is to make the

wrongdoers to be accountable to persons were harmed in order to achieve trust, to illustrate the good solution benefiting both parties in win-win situation and to address the underlying factors that lead youth engage in delinquent behavior, and preventing recidivism and make offenders rejoin the community (Jessica. A, & Kimberly. B., n.d).

The use of restorative justice: reduce crime, violence and

bullying, repair harm, strengthen civil society, improve human behavior, restore relationships and provide effective leadership.

A.     Literature Review

The basic principle of restorative justice is to involve primary

stakeholders to repair the harm and achieve reconciliation by cooperative interaction. The effective restorative justice can be achieved by three-phase collaboration. As restorative justice typology declared (McCold& Wachtel, 2003), the degree to which all three are involved in meaningful emotional exchange and decision making is the degree to which any form of social discipline approaches being fully restorative. The fully restorative process should be achieved by active participating by all sets of primary stakeholders.

B.     History and Development (From criminal justice to restorative justice)

Restorative justice originated in the 1970s as mediation or reconciliation between victims and offenders.  At that time, the principles of restorative justice was only advocated by a small personnel and a group of scholars in North America and Europ (Mark, Betty, Robert & Elizabeth, 2005).

 

The traditional criminal justice system is based on evidence,

sentencing and punishment. And restorative justice is based on truth, apology and repayment for the pain. The restorative justice movement has gone through a number of stages. The initial movement called “Victim Offender Reconciliation Program” happened in Kithener, Ontario, Canada in 1974 which dealing with juvenile conflict.

However, it was only in the past decade that a range of non-adversarial alternative processes, now described generically as "restorative group conferencing" models, emerged on the international scene as part of a new paradigm for justice decision making (Bazemore, O'Brien, Carey, 2005)

Restorative justice can be used in many fields like crime system, school and family. Restorative justice policies and programs are known today to be developing in nearly every state of America. In the field of education, many schools have school guide using restorative justice to guide students dealing with conflicts. It is also developing in other countries like Australia, Canada, numerous European countries, Japan, New Zealand, and South Africa, several South American countries, South Korea, and Russia.

C. Examples of restorative justice, such as using restorative justice in solving school violence

The typical restorative justice in school application is restorative

conference, peaceful circles and peer jury. The all practices make sure that the involving offenders, victims and both parties’ family and friends. Participants who want to participate in are voluntary.  The goal of meetings is to offer a safe, equal place for genuine dialogue between related parties to express their feelings and ask questions and have a say in the outcome.

D. Comparison between traditional justice and restorative justice

The typical response to bad behavior is punishment. Restorative justice resolve discipline problems in a cooperative and constructive way. The traditional criminal justice system is based on evidence, sentencing and punishment. And restorative justice is based on truth, apology and repayment for the pain. Compared with criminal justice and restorative justice in Figure 1 and Table 1, traditional criminal justice neglects the emotion of victim and aim to judge the wrongdoing of offenders. Besides, offenders cannot feel it is obligation to repair the pains that it is easy for offenders to redo the misbehavior in the future. And the relationship between offenders and victims cannot be smooth. On the other hand, restorative justice has long term benefit for two counterparties by three parties, victim, offenders and community deliver collaboration work. According to the research of William. B (2006), the data regarding reduction of recidivism, victim and offender experience of satisfaction and fairness in the victim offender mediation process rather than traditional criminal justice.

    Figure 1: A comparison of punitive and restorative justice responses in schools

(source: Ashley, J. & Burkem, K.  (n.d). Implementing restorative Justice. The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority. )

(source: Umbreit. M., Vos. B., Coates. R.B., & Lightfoot. E. (2005). Restorative justice in the twenty-first century: a social movement full of opportunities and pitfalls. Marquette Law Review. Pp253-304)

 E. Why people use this way?

a. The effect of religion culture

With the emphasis of "human being" in the world, the religion

culture contributes the significant theoretical foundation for the development of restorative justice. It integrates the thoughts of Buddhism and Christianism into restorative justice. In terms of the transmission of Buddhism, the purpose of punishment is to correct one's mistakes and reeducate. And it also think violence can create more violence, which is opposite to the retributive justice which emphasize the authority of punishments. In the perspective of Christianism, it emphasize the shalom, was used to describe the ideal state in which the community should function, the wholeness-the existence of right relationships among individuals, the community, and the God. As Christopher (2001) described the original purpose of Christianism was healing, restoration and reconciliation, which provide the understanding for the "justice". What is more, the power of religion still can be founded in the process of restorative justice programs. For example, the initial restorative justice called Victim Offender Reconciliation Program, in Canada, 1974, Christian offer healing service in term of spirit for victim to reduce the emotional harm.

Indigenous approach of sanitizing crime

With the development of human right movement in the world, respecting indigenous population is also the significant force to the improvement of restorative justice. The thinking of indigenous culture provides valuable ideas to restorative justice. Indigenous population in North America, New Zealand, Australia, and elsewhere are finding ways their traditional approaches to crime. The Family group conferencing is originated from Maoris, New Zealand which pay more attention on the importance of third party, which are family and community in the process of solving problem. Sentencing circle in the crime system stem from indigenous people from Canada. They think the safety of community is based on the degree of restitution for the harm. Besides, the reason of crime is exited in the structure of community and economy. Crime is harmful between victim and offenders, offenders and community. Loss of any one party cannot resolve the problem well. 

b. High crime rate

The goal of restorative justice is "to make up for the loss to full

recovery ".Specifically, restorative justice not only emphasizes on the compensation to victims, restore the victim's original physical and mental condition, but also concerned about the offender's recovery. Since the non- penalty punishment of crime can make offenders not be far away from the community, and through their remedial behaviors can they be forgiven by victims and community, offenders can reintegrate into society again. What is more, restorative justice also pay attention to the recovery of social relations or social security. Because the crime itself is the result of the social conflict escalates and social tensions. While the criminal justice "Guilty shall be punished" will not help solve social conflicts, but generates new conflicts between the victim, the offender and the community. Thus, restorative justice advocates the reconciliation and compensation between the offender and the victim, will resolve conflicts, easing social conflicts. In this way, social relations will be restored to the state before the crime occurred, or even achieve a more harmonious world.

While the rapid expansion of prison building did not reduce, and may have even increased crime rates in some communities, it might, however, have just as easily led more people to believe that restorative justice was responsible for what was an overall decline in violent crime (Bazemore et al, 2005).  Thus, people transferred their attention to restorative justice to reduce crime rate, when traditional justice could not do so. 

c. Cultural change

This concept of a "cultural shift" may be used to describe what may be a slow, even glacial process of transformation in values. Yet, such a process may be at times spontaneous, powerful and unrelenting when it reaches what has recently been referred to as a "tipping point". A "social epidemic" does not reach its zenith until a cultural shift occurs. Like many other social phenomena, the rise of restorative justice may be understood as an ＆idea, whose time has come,'the right concept for the right time' (Bazemore, O'Brien, et al, 2005). In the period when people believe that traditional justice is not perfect and it even has deficiency in preventing recidivism, helping victims and reintegrating offenders into communities, their attention was attracted by the restorative reformers, who led persons to think about healing and reparation.  

Beyond the boundaries of criminal justice, and other organizations,

larger community forces may also become a primary catalyst for change. Human beings has the needs of bond, there may be a fear or concern about a loss of coherence in community life, a weakening in relationships with other community members, or a decline in collective conflict resolution skills. In general, this is a sense of wanting to preserve something in community life in social relationships and networks of relationships that appears to be slipping away (Bazemore,et al, 2005).

d. Building the community

The turn toward restorative justice may therefore be viewed as a response of desperation among some community members and groups to the realization that they are losing something important. Specifically, they have experienced a decline in their capacity as parents, neighbors, teachers, faith community members, and members of other networks of civil society to socialize young people and respond effectively to crime and conflict. In formal justice system, there is no function involving community in problem solution. While the core of restorative justice is participation, it offers an opportunity for stakeholders to attend decision making. In this way, community can make use their skills to come out creative solutions of conflicts instead of using the stagnant statutes.   

II. Prediction 

Under the guidance of criminal justice, criminal policy emphasizes

punishment. In modern penal structure, it is still imprisonment-centered. And the deprivation and restriction of personal freedom punishment did not meet the public expectation - to reduce the crime rate. In contrast, the imprisonment has brought a series of difficult problems for the world. Moreover, the retributive imprisonment did not bring improvement to the social order. From the beginning of the 1950s, crime rates rise sharply again in Western countries. In particular, the recidivism rates increase substantially. This situation brings two very different reactions, which is the polarization trend in alleged criminal policy circles. As the famous Japanese scholar Morishita pointed out, "After World War II, the criminal policy of the world is toward so-called loose criminal policy and severe criminal policy in two directions. This phenomenon is called the polarization of criminal policy."

However restorative justice is from the perspective of the society and the victim, thinking the rights violations of victims at first. Next, considering the violation of interest relationship among offenders, victims and society. Thus, the concern of restorative justice is how to proceed from the actual needs of the victim and the community, to restore various losses caused by the crime, including the losses of victims and society. This is accord with restorative justice scripted by Howard Zech, "crime causes injury, injury causes obligation, and justice means to make everything be back to normal."

Today, the restorative justice movement is more visible than ever and has the appearance of a reform effort that, though still in its early stages, has potential for continued growth and impact (Bazemore,  et al, 2005). With more frequent communication among nations and more convenient media transmission, we believe restorative justice can be wider spread around the world as an alternative of court. 





III. Restorative justice helps solve conflicts better

Let us take Bunche High School in American as an example.

A.    Comparison between formal justice and restorative justice

a.      Formal justice does not help solve conflict

          Before conducting restorative justice, Bunche High School applied punishment for misbehavior by students, such as detention, suspension and expulsion. To the misbehaved students, the punishment did not work. It even resulted in higher rate of cutting class, high crime rate and disrespect for teachers. The negative effects show that conflicts are not well solved. The misbehavior students just receive the punishment but not feel guilty at all. There is still a huge possibility that they will become offender again. Because as a competing conflict management style, it is power-oriented and approaches conflict into a win-lose situation (managing conflict, p70, figure1).

b.      Restorative Justice does a better job

        However, the poor situation of Bunche High School changed after restorative justice was introduced. Instead of punishment, the offending student is given the chance to come forward and correct the mistake. Usually, they sit down in a circle and works together with the teacher and the affected parties to work it out. (as the video shows) The restorative dialogue is a process that both victims and offenders express their inner ideas. And it leads to help the offenders to find “meaningfully accountable” for their misbehaviors, which would heal victim students. As a positive result, the school is safer and students are more focused on their studies.

            c. Restorative justice is a process involving the primary

stakeholders in determining how best to repair the harm done by an offense. The three primary stakeholders in restorative justice are victims, offenders and their communities of care, whose needs are, respectively, obtaining reparation, taking responsibility and achieving reconciliation. The degree to which all three are involved in meaningful emotional exchange and decision making is the degree to which any form of social discipline approaches being fully restorative (Ted, p3). While with simple punishment, only offenders involve in problem solution. Compared with restorative justice, this type cannot achieve full accomplishment.

B.     Solve conflicts through win-win Negotiation

        

   During the restorative dialogue, both victims and offenders could take the perspective of the other party, and by seeing the world through the counterparty’s eyes; it could enhance the ability of solving the conflict. (win-win negotiation, p81). With open talk, the delinquents have a chance to understand the feeling of the victims. Opposite with our commonsense, victims often feel shame even if offenders go wrong (Ted, p5-6). In this kind of respective environment, victims can inform their pain to the other two parties, while other parties have the opportunities to acknowledge the reasons of the wrongdoing.  As they know the target, all stakeholders focus on healing instead of distracted by other affairs.

        Furthermore, restorative justice offer conditions that every party can provide information about interests and priority. In the case of NetWest High School, each party has the chance to talk about what they really care about in the circle.

        Besides, what is most important in getting win-win negotiation is to make multiple offers of equivalent value simultaneously. Through cooperation with public, victims and perpetrators can have more solutions to the same problem.

       

  What is more, by developing the agreement together, restorative justice could bring healing  to victims and rehabilitation to offenders, thus it reaches to a win-win strategy (managing conflict, p70, figure1). The win-win negotiation style indicates that both victims and offenders are assertive and cooperative so that they are highly concern for relationships as well. While applying it to conflict management style, restorative justice is categorized to relationship-based attributes (workplace conflict, p54, figure).

Ⅳ. Restorative justice is better than simple punishment or shame

A.  Power of promise

          

    Only win-win negotiation is not enough, since one party can easily break commitment without public promise. In the process of restorative justice, three parties can communicate explicitly. Based on collaboration, all sides explicitly thrash out what the customers (promise receiver) wants and why, how the provider (promise provide) would go about satisfying the request, and any constraints or competing priorities that could derail fulfillment of the promise (Donald & Charles, p81). In this way, effective promise comes into being. Moreover, when providers make promises out in the public, they cannot conveniently forget their words (Donald & Charles, p82).

            On the opposite, simple punishment cannot make such difference. In punishment, only offenders are involved. Without acknowledging suffering and public supervision, offenders are likely to break the commitment in the future, even though offenders promise.

           B.  Illustrate why promise in restorative justice is useful

a. Mission based promise

       

    The most effective promise is mission based. When the providers know the importance and rationale of the promise, they are more likely to persist in executing even they encounter roadblocks (Donald & Charles, p86). For example, in the restorative justice process in Oakland classroom, three parties, after listening to others respectively, knew each other’s needs. Tommy needed more care from the teacher and his mother while he had to show respect to the teacher. The teacher, on the other hand, should give more care to students. Tommy’s mother should take responsibility to take care of her children. The result was that every party kept their words. The result was that each party made public promise based on their responsibility and they all kept their words.

b. Explicit promises

       

 After customers and providers clarified their obligations, they set off achieving so. However, promise is easy to say than to do. Promise is not something controllable, since there are lots of elements out of control. However, with collaboration among three stakeholders, promise that benefits each party most can be achieved through continuous renegotiation.

c.      Public promises

       With public supervision, forgetting a promise is not a simple issue. Most people strive to make good on declaration they have made in public. After all, their reputation for competence and trustworthiness are on the line. Especially for the offenders, their trust relationship with the other parties is fragile since they have misbehaved once, if they cannot walk the talk, they may never rebuild the trust (Thompson, p143). In the case of Leilani, if her friends violate their promise, they might be abandoned by the whole community.

V. Illustrate why restorative justice is better in aspect of preventing recidivism

        A.   Restorative justice prevent recidivism more effectively

      

   Victim offender mediation (VOM) is the most established intervention model of the restorative justice movement (William, David& Mark, p88).Nugent, Umbreit, Winamaki, and Paddock (2001) conducted a rigorous reanalysis of recidivism data reported in four previous well-designed studies. The sample consisted of 1,298 juvenile offenders (619 participated in VOM and 679 did not). Results of the logistic regression showed that VOM youth recidivated at a statistically significant reduced rate, 32 percent lower than non-VOM youth. In addition, when VOM youth did reoffend, they did so for less serious offenses than non-VOM youth did. This replication study is an important step in the literature in substantiating the effectiveness of VOM in reducing juvenile recidivism (William, David& Mark, p89). 

    
    In simple summary, restorative justice has obvious effect on recidivism prevention. The following part is analysis of the reason restorative justice has the magical power in recidivism prevention.

C.     The reasons

a. Help offenders reintegrate into community

      

   Restorative justice emphasizes healing through both material and symbolic   restitution, rebuilding the self-respect of offenders, and integrating them back into the community (Jerry& Karl, p625). After win-win negotiation, making promises, victims show forgiveness to the delinquents. This affective emotion help offenders reintegrate into the relationship with them. Turning to the wider community, restorative justice offers those responsible for wrongdoing the opportunity to accept responsibility, regain self- respect, and be reintegrated into the social settings whose norms they have violated without having to bear the stigma of their offense (Jerry& Karl, p626). Without apply restorative justice in preventing recidivism, tragedy happens:

      

In the case of Patrick, after he committed his first crime, he was

   abandoned by his mother. Without shelter, he had to live on the street. Having been accused of beating up a kid in his school, the situation worsened, Patrick robbed a liquor store with a few boys. With no clear communication, care, respect and help, Patrick recidivated again and again. If Patrick got a chance in attending restorative justice process, the situation could be different (Susan, p49).

b. Restorative justice enhances career development for offender

Delinquent behavior is also costly for the juvenile offender. The

juvenile is at high risk of lowered educational and occupational opportunities (William, David& Mark, p87). Without aids from community, offenders may reoffend again when they cannot find a job or get property education. As we have mentioned the case of Patrick, since he stopped education and got criminal record it is harder for him to get into the right track again without the help from community when he is released from the jail. While on the other side, in the case related to Tom, who was addicted to methamphetamines, had few job skills and had no money for college, got help from social worker and his parents. Fortunately, Tom managed to finish his high school education and got a part time job to make a living (Susan, p47).

Conclusion:

       We draw the conclusion that restorative justice practice is better than simple punishment since it is better in four aspects. Firstly, it came into being with the needs of human beings. Secondly, it offers us a way—explicit, respective and affective communication to get win-win negotiation. Thirdly, the power of promise is strong in this practice, since the promises are made in public with clear mission. Finally, restorative justice can prevent recidivism effectively, for, with help of third party, the offender can get into the right track.
       
     -Chen Ying will introduce more about restorative justice helps slove conflicts well
        -Hou Wenxin will introduce more about accountability
        -Wang Kailin will introduce more about preventing recidivism

Reference:

Ashley, J. & Burkem, K.  (n.d). Implementing restorative Justice. The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority.

Bradshaw, W., D. Roseborough, et al. (2006). "The effect of victim offender mediation on juvenile offender recidivism: A meta-analysis." Conflict Resolution Quarterly 24(1): 87-98.

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Bazemore, G., O'Brien, S., Carey, M. (2005). The Synergy and Substance of Organizational and Community Change in the Response to Crime and Conflict: The Emergence and Potential of Restorative Justice. Public Organization Review. 5(4). 287-314.

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Umbreit, M. S. (1994). Victim meets offender: The impact of restorative justice and mediation. Monsey, N.Y.: Criminal Justice Press.

Umbreit. M., Vos. B., Coates. R.B., & Lightfoot. E. (2005). Restorative justice in the twenty-first century: A social movement full of opportunities and pitfalls. Marquette Law Review. Pp253-304

Wachtel, T. (n.d) Defining restorative justice. International Institution for Restorative Practives. Retrieved from http://www.iirp.edu/what-is-restorative-practices.php

 Cases:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSf620nvHJA

http://www.weareteachers.com/hot-topics/special-reports/restorative-justice-a-different-approach-to-discipline

http://www.restorativejustice.org/RJOB/discipline-with-dignity-oakland-classrooms-try-healing-instead-of punishment#1393798172668898 

http://www.restorativejustice.org/RJOB/discipline-with-dignity-oakland-classrooms-try-healing-instead-of-punishment#1393798172668898 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmpGg8Dy-K4 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdKhcQrLD1w