Week 10: Restorative justice in practice

There is a lot to be said about restorative justice in the English criminal justice system, and I said a fair bit of it this afternoon. If you've got any interest in RJ I strongly recommend having a good look at the slides on Moodle. Also, do some reading when you get a moment. (John Braithwaite! Barbara Hudson! Andrew Ashworth! Go on, you know you want to.) However, given the way this unit is structured, the sad fact is that taking an interest in RJ at this stage is unlikely to have any effect on your degree, so I can understand why a number of you gave it a miss today. Note to self: next year, set RJ essay.

It was nice to see so many people turning up for the 'drop-in' sessions this afternoon. I'll be running them again next week, so you can bring any last-minute essay panics to me then. I've been very favourably impressed with the thoughtfulness and creativity that's gone into planning your essays; I'm looking forward to seeing the finished articles.

Week 9: Restorative justice

First things first: if you didn't get to the lecture (and I know how many people did), please download the slides and read them through. You won't get the full effect, but it'll be better than nothing.

If you weren't involved in the role-playing exercise we did in seminars, please have a look at the "Restorative Conference Facilitator Script" which is linked on Moodle. Here are some excerpts (there are also set questions for the victim and for anyone who has come along to support them).

Ask the offender:

• “What happened?”
• “What were you thinking about at the time?”
• “What have you thought about since the incident?”
• “Who do you think has been affected by your actions?”
• “How have they been affected?”

Ask each parent/caregiver: “This has been difficult for you, hasn’t it? Would you like to tell us about it?”

Have each respond to all of the following questions.

• “What did you think when you heard about the incident?”
• “How do you feel about what happened?”
• “What has been the hardest thing for you?”
• “What do you think are the main issues?”

Ask the offender: “Is there anything you want to say at this time?”

Picture yourself sitting around a table, after a crime has been committed, and answering questions like these - as the victim, as the offender, as an offender's 'supporters' (very often parents). How do you think they would make you feel? Do you think the victim would find the process useful or satisfactory? What role do you think the offender is being made to play?

Some more general questions to ponder.

If restorative justice works through 'restitution' - giving the victim back what they've lost - how can it work for victims of physical violence? And if a victim of violence is willing to accept some form of more or less symbolic restorative justice, what implication does this have for other victims of that same crime?

If restorative justice works through 'reintegrative shaming' - encouraging the offender to say 'sorry' and encouraging the victim to accept the apology - how can we be sure that everyone involved is being sincere? What if the victim genuinely wants to accept the apology on the day, but has second thoughts later?

If restorative justice works through 'community conflict resolution' - mobilising the community as a whole to deal with the conflict represented by the crime that's been committed - how can we, in developed Western societies, identify the relevant 'community'? If we can get together a group of people who will be listened to by both the offender and the victim, how can we be sure they're going to resolve the case satisfactorily and not simply gang up on the offender?

'Restitution', 'reintegrative shaming' and 'community conflict resolution' have all been put forward as rationales for restorative justice (Dignan refers to these models as the 'civilisation' thesis, the 'moral discourse' thesis and the 'communitarian' thesis, respectively). In the real world, can a single process achieve all three of those outcomes? If not, is there anything that all these forms of restorative justice have in common?

One final thought to leave you with: what would it be like to go into a restorative justice process having admitted guilt for tactical reasons, not actually having committed the crime? Would your innocence be found out?