published Texas Journal of Corrections 29:4
(November 2003): 10-13
home: www.PreciousHeart.net
or www.PreciousHeart.net/rj
1. Lewis
and Clark and Restorative Justice
2. Woodville, Texas, & Restorative Justice
3. International "Restorative Justice"
4. New
Zealand's Watershed Study
5. United
Nations & Restorative Justice
6. U.S.,
Texas & Restorative Justice
7. Restorative Justice = Meeting
Needs
10. Charting the "Wilderness" of RJ
"Restorative
Justice"—whatever does that mean?
In Woodville, Texas,
plans for a Restorative Justice Ministry Family Service Center have begun. Yet, what is it? What will it do?
Compare the concept
of "Restorative Justice" and the beginnings of this Service Center to
the expedition of Capt. Merriweather Lewis and Lt. William Clark. The expedition charted a path through the
northwest wilderness of 19th century America to the west coast under a
commission from President Thomas Jefferson.
In 2003-2004 there will be many commemorations to honor that trek's
200th anniversary. On May 14, 1804,
Lewis and Clark left St. Lois, Missouri;
on the first day they camped 6 miles up the Missouri River. They returned two and half years later on
September 23, 1806, logging over two thousand miles.
They had no map, precedent or guidebook.
At that time, everyone
knew that someone needed to go into the wilderness with an
"objective" to chart a Northwest pathway, not just make
excursions for gold and beaver pelts.
President Jefferson had been preparing Capt. Lewis to lead the
expedition for over a year. With
courage, self-sacrifice and the incredible fiber of individual confidence,
Lewis and Clark entered a truly uncharted territory without any
precedent and without any promise of success.
That expedition into
the wilderness of the 19th century northwest compares to the current state of
affairs of "Restorative Justice" on both the national and
international scene. Moreover, the
expedition compares to what is actually happening in Woodville, Texas.
In July of 2002, John
Morrison gathered some community leaders together to discuss the need for a
"Restorative Justice" service center in Woodville. Ideas and concerns were bantered about, and
a board was founded. In subsequent
meetings, some property was donated by the Hayes estate, and the board approved
the steps necessary to pursue incorporation.
What
"needs" will the Restorative Justice Center meet? Theoretically and broadly speaking, the
initial goal was to help those caught up in the criminal justice systems. Those "caught up" include the
offenders, the victims, their families, the agencies, the churches and the many
other service organizations with specific missions in the county, the state and
the nation.
Yet, those words
about meeting needs lack specificity, and the "vision" of the center
looks deep into the uncharted frontier of the "Restorative Justice"
wilderness. In the looking, it is very
difficult to see a clear pathway.
Impossible. Let me explain.
"Restorative
Justice" (RJ) has been a developing philosophy for about twenty years on
the international scene, primarily in places like Britain, Australia, Canada,
New Zealand and even Japan and some third world countries. RJ initiatives sprang up as complements to
(even alternatives to) the frustrations experienced in the various nations'
failures to curb crime and lower recidivism in those countries. Like the U.S., those countries have concerns
about crime, yet they have lower crime rates, lower recidivism and lower
incarceration rates per capita than the U.S.
Enter the significance of RJ.
The Restorative
Justice Network Ministry Network of North America is the leading network on
restorative justice with over 57,000 citizens and growing. Its web site www.rjmn.net defines RJ as:
Restorative
Justice asks: 1) What will it take to
restore "Shalom" (peace) back to this community now that it has been
broken by this crime? 2) What will it
take to restore a sense of autonomy to this crime victim? 3) What will it take to eventually restore
this offender to the community? These
questions lead to "healing."
Emmett Solomon
has lead this effort for several decades.
Another leading web site on RJ is www.restorativejustice.org, and it
defines RJ as:
a systematic
response to crime that emphasizes healing the wounds of victims, offenders and
communities caused or revealed by the criminal behavior. Practices and programs reflecting
restorative purposes will: (a) identify
and take steps to repair harm done, (b) involve all stakeholders, and (c)
transform the traditional relationship between communities and their
governments.
Theorists like J.
Braithwaite, D. Ness, T. Marshall, H. Zehr, G. Bazemore, B. Galaway and J. Hudson have researched and
articulated most of the substantive issues and problems with RJ for the last
twenty years. So much so, RJ has been
tendered as a kind of new paradigm and even an alterative to current
"criminal justice systems." A
few more skeptical have given warnings that RJ could be a regression of
justice.
In a way, the U.S.
are late comers to the serious international discussions over integrating RJ
initiatives formally into the actual judicial processes. Paralleling the international focus on the
broader implications of RJ, many criminal justice agencies in the U.S. have
been supporting the more focused agendas of the various "Victim-Offender
Mediation" and "Victim Advocacy" programs for adults and
children (and other programs focused on healing the pain of
victimization). Most of those have
focused on victim healing, remaining outside of the official judicial influence
upon the fate of the offender.
Part of the reason
for the U.S. hesitancy in the formal integration is that some RJ principles
have the appearance of moving underneath the rule of law, like family and
community conferencing (where families actually determine some portion of
punishment and justice); this kind of
conferencing has been a part of less complex cultures and societies for
centuries. Another reason is that the
"complexity" itself of U.S. criminal justice systems (the federal
powers and the near independence of its 50 states) is not easily or quickly
changed. Even so, several RJ
initiatives have been initiated in many state and county juvenile systems in
the U.S. with respect to the adjudication of juvenile punishment (be
that remedial, restitution or other alternatives to simple incarceration).
Throughout the U.S.,
so much good and lasting results have been accomplished by the various victim
advocacy groups in aiding resolution (even in reparation in some foreign
countries) and by the juvenile conferencing models where a youth is saved from
a criminal record that these initiatives are quickly becoming institutions in
themselves. But some of these nascent
institutions have been unaware of (or lost) their connection to their RJ
roots; and worse, most of these
nascent U.S. institutions have no ongoing connection to the more
judicially pervasive, theoretically holistic and more philosophically coherent
vision of the international community's RJ principles.
The international considerations
of RJ principles have been about much more than victim advocacy and
juvenile restoration. Much more. The international considerations have been
about the community pain and cost of victimization, the damage to
community trust (to social contracts, etc.) and beyond to seriously
include the formal integration of the community (non-official persons) into the
actual adjudication beyond just a person's duty to sit on a jury
in America's current criminal justice system.
Internationally, RJ
is not a religious movement, but a developing philosophy that is supported by
many governments, special interests groups, cultural representatives, religious
groups as well as leading criminologists and jurists. And some doubt.
New Zealand's Ministry
of Justice has made some of the most substantive investigations to date. John Belgrave, Secretary of Justice,
initiated the research for Restorative Justice: A Discussion Paper (November 1995) that outlined the major
research "for" and "against" the RJ philosophy and how RJ
principles "may" or "may not" impact New Zealand's current
cultures and its total criminal justice system. In June of 1998, the Ministry of Justice published Restorative
Justice: The Public Submissions,
which summarized the results of the feedback from the discussion paper.
New Zealand analyzed
RJ principles and their theoretical impact upon an entire government's
criminal justice system. The importance
of such a thorough study cannot be overestimated for the whole cause of RJ (pro
or con). What became evident was the huge
degree of complication of RJ side-by-side with the many valid concerns for
bringing the community back into adjudication of a crime's punishment. What New Zealand did has yet to be surpassed
by a developed country.
For a superpower like
the U.S. to do a comparable study and get a like amount of representative
feedback would require an almost unimaginable amount of work. New Zealand is only about 4 million strong
with just over 100k square miles. Just
Texas alone is over 2.5 times the size with over 5 times the population. The complexity of such a self-analysis for
just Texas would be tenfold or more, to say nothing of a good national study.
RJ in the U.S. is
still a vast wilderness, too uncharted with so few obvious natural resources to
catch the eye of venture capitalists and too few proven theorems to catch the
curiosity of the grant writers for any major research institutions.
RJ continues. At the 2000 United Nations Crime Congress in
Vienna, Austria, in an ancillary meeting dealing with international restorative
justice issues, John Braithwaite presented a formative paper, Standards for
Restorative Justice. The first
standard was:
Restorative
justice programs should be evaluated according to how effectively they deliver
restorative values which include:
respect for the fundamental human rights specified in the [United
Nations (UN) documents] Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its Second Optional
Protocol, the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against
Women and the Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime
and Abuse of Power.
The second
standard outlined the most essential values in the above mentioned UN
documents: Restoration of property
loss, Restoration of injury to the person or health, Restoration of damaged
human relationships, Restoration of communities, Restoration of the
environment, Emotional restoration, Restoration of freedom, Restoration of
compassion or caring, Restoration of peace, Restoration of empowerment or
self-determination and Restoration of a sense of duty as a citizen.
At those UN ancillary
meetings, the presenters were primarily from NGO's (non-government
organizations), and there were no presenters from any of the criminal justice
agencies in the United States (federal or state). The one person that contributed documents from the United States
was Donald Van Ness, who is the coordinator for the new International Center
for Justice and Reconciliation, organized by Prison Fellowship (PF). PF has paved the way for some prison reform
and is clearly aligned with the Christian religious right in the United
States.
The irony is that
there appeared to be only one non-government person discussing RJ principles
from the U.S. at the UN ancillary meetings with other non-government representatives
from around the world, while at the same time the U.S. has the largest
number of incarcerated and highest recidivism rate in the world (Texas with the
highest incarceration rate per capita in the U.S.). That is truly ironic and sad.
Dialogue with those
countries with lower crime rates and lower recidivism seems to be in best
interests of the U.S. With respect to
Texas, PF itself brought Texas and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
(TDCJ) to the national "religious RJ" scene by pioneering the funding
of the first prison totally devoted to faith-based values in the history
of the United States with the InnerChange Freedom Initiative.
I am biased,
somewhat, and think TDCJ and Texas have much to offer the national and
international dialogue on RJ principles.
Texas, TDCJ and their leaders are administrating one of the
largest, most complex and influential criminal justice agencies in the
world.
The full implications
of RJ are yet to be manifested, especially in the U.S. What is clear is that RJ is about meeting
needs, and those "needs" include dealing with the very structure
of our U.S. criminal justice systems and all of the stakeholders in
those systems. The stakeholders are every
citizen: victim, offender, employee,
volunteer and the families of all these and even the businesses surrounding all
of these.
While RJ is about
meeting needs, first, RJ is also about an internationally developing philosophy
informing, contributing and influencing criminal justice protocols. Whatever it may be called in the future, as
RJ moves beyond the philosophical stage, we will need more people from all of
the stakeholders to inform. Among those
most able to inform at a critical level—where the offenders live—are those
intricately involved in such world class institutions like TDCJ. Though PF has led the way in dialoguing on
the international scene, it would seem prudent that leaders of the U.S. penal
systems themselves should be engaged in these dialogues, if not leading them.
Back to Lewis and
Clark and Woodville, Texas. Taking the
initiative to go where no one has gone before and stepping out to chart a path
through an unknown wilderness demands courage and a sizable risk.
What is a RJ Ministry
Family Service Center? A point of
contact between the church and the criminal justice system. A resource for those caught up in or
adversely touched by the criminal justice system. Yes, but those words do not say much about "meeting specific
needs." Those "words"
are like the wilderness that Lewis and Clark were commissioned to chart. The "words" are broad and
meaningless till one crosses the mountain and charts the valleys.
What is a Restorative
Justice Ministry Family Service Center?
To counsel with a grieving parent whose child was just arrested. To connect that parent with an attorney or
help them visit their loved one. To be
with a victim or family member and help them network with other specific
resources. To provide a place to stay
for someone during a jail or prison visit.
To connect a parolee with a church.
To provide an avenue for mediation prior to adjudication. Those are some of the needs, but by no means
the full wilderness.
A RJ center CANNOT
know all of the needs in the wilderness BEFORE the trek begins. That is the adventure, perhaps one of the
few truly uncharted wildernesses left to be scoped out. Some of the needs will only come to
light when a center is present. Some of
the wilderness and definition and charting will only unfold as someone
takes the risk to go where no one has gone before.
There are over
148,000 prisoners, over 76,000 offenders on parole and over 430,000 on
probation in Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). How many more exist in the city and county
justice systems? Each of those
offenders have mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers and
more; most offenders have children too. Add to that the huge number of victims and
their families. Add to that TDCJ staff
and volunteers and their families. Add
all those involved in the criminal legal system in Texas: the judges, juries, law enforcement
agencies, lawyers, support apparatuses and their families.
This translates into
about half of Texas' population in some way touched by the criminal justice
system—over ten million good Texas citizens.
"Who is not touched by crime?" is less trite and
becomes a more formidable and urgent question in the light of the pervasive
international RJ principles. Those
who are touched by crime are involved in RJ, even
unknowingly. Isn't it prudent and
cost-effective and democratic that a means be found to more
"consciously" involve all of the stakeholders in RJ? At a bare minimum, this ought to entail a
"conscious" and "conscientious" dialogue with the
international RJ community.
Remember, RJ is about
meeting needs. Subtract from the
above the needs that are currently met by the victim advocacy and services
groups like crisis shelters and food banks (though networking would help meet
more needs). Subtract an
ephemeral number of those who "do not need help" because they are
strong, have family and church and other resources. The dividend of those adversely touched would still be several
million.
Who are they and what
are their needs? That is the uncharted
Texas "wilderness" of Restorative Justice.
In Woodville, Texas,
a board of directors is pondering how to start a Restorative Justice Ministry
Family Service Center. The board does not
yet know all of what will be discovered.
The board does know that the territory is vast, hostile and
uncharted.
RJ is about the
citizen's involvement in the judicial and criminal justice systems beyond
the citizen's duty to sit on a jury. RJ
is about meeting needs. RJ is an
initiative in crime prevention, crime reduction, offender habilitation and
recidivism reduction. RJ is not just a
response to pain. RJ is of the people,
for the people, and hopefully, it will "by" the people—all of
the stakeholders.
Like their
counterparts internationally, those involved in RJ in Texas and in the U.S. do
not have all of the answers.
Yet isn't that just
what makes up a true adventure?
Charting as you go. Discovering
what you can on the way. Placing danger
signs where needed. Networking. Marking out the path as it is
discovered. Then, at the end, to be
able to say "we boldly went where no one has gone before." Best of all, to be able to say, "here
are some pictures of the wilderness;
here is where a new settlement of peace can be built."
"Restorative
Justice" is America's new frontier and deserves more support as that
frontier unfolds for us in the decades to come. And among the best ways for RJ to unfold is through dialogue with
the international community. For more
information on Restorative Justice you can go to www.restorativejustice.org,
www.rjmn.net, or check out the super list of 900+ of the internet's top web
sites on RJ and bibliography at www.preciousheart.net.
~
Top ~
HOME: www.PreciousHeart.net
1. Lewis
and Clark and Restorative Justice
2. Woodville, Texas, & Restorative Justice
3. International "Restorative Justice"
4. New
Zealand's Watershed Study
5. United
Nations & Restorative Justice
6. U.S.,
Texas & Restorative Justice
7. Restorative Justice = Meeting
Needs
10. Charting the "Wilderness" of RJ