Narrative accounts from the citizens,victims, and offenders restoring justice program

This paper describes the Citizens, Victims, and Offenders Restoring Justice (CVORJ) program, a prison-based program conducted as a pilot study at the Washington State Reformatory. The program brings together offenders and victims - though not involved in the same crime - in the company of interested community members to discuss restorative justice principles. The program focuses on the sharing of personal narratives of crime to explore how the harms resulting from crime can best be addressed and justice achieved. Of interest was how a restorative justice model that highlighted community participation could be incorporated into a correctional setting and whether healing could result from the use of surrogate offenders, victims, and community members. The restorative nature of the program, its method of operation, results from the qualitative evaluation, and key implementation challenges are presented.     

Harm and Repair: Observing restorative justice in Vermont

This paper analyzes the decision-making process for negotiating reparative contracts with offenders in a restorative justice model. Based on a content analysis of videotaped Community Reparative Board meetings with probationers in Vermont, this paper defines restoration as a core concept in restorative justice; examines how boards identify harm to victims and community; discusses how boards identify strategies to repair identified harm; addresses how repair often becomes a line item in reparative contracts; and offers interpretation for situations in which harm is not identified and/or not repaired.     

Rebecca Roberts introduces this issue of cjm

Abstract

While the pages of Criminal Justice Matters frequently examine and assess criminal justice policies and often make recommendations on how to reform the system, this edition takes a more reflexive approach. Rather than focus on the nature of criminal justice reforms, this issue of cjm shines a spotlight on the reformers.     

Evolutionary psychology and the origins of justice

Justice defines our discipline in both name and substance; yet its origin is a neglected topic. I explore the origins of the human “sense of justice” from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. My thesis is that the human sense of justice is a biological adaptation in the fullest sense of the word: That is, an evolved solution to problems faced by our distant ancestors. I explore the role of reciprocal altruism and of “cheating” and cheater detection as exerting pressure for the selection of moral outrage in our species. Moral outrage leads to the desire to punish, which serves an expiatory role. This punishment can be tempered with mercy by tapping into the evolved emotions of empathy and sympathy as cultural ideas defining all human beings as intrinsically valuable. Reconciliation and reintegration as contained in restorative justice are also examined from this naturalistic perspective. I conclude by exploring how cultural variability can be accommodated.     

Swedish crime scene technicians: facilitations,epistemic frictions and professionalization from the outside

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the role of crime scene technicians in the Swedish criminal justice system, and particularly how Swedish crime scene technicians not only examine crime scenes but also facilitate the criminal justice system’s joint production of forensic evidence. It proposes thinking about the criminal justice system as a conglomeration of epistemic cultures, that is, of communities with different ways of producing and understanding forensic evidence. Such a perspective makes it possible to understand interprofessional frictions as epistemic frictions as well as to draw attention to the facilitations, mediations and translations that crime scene technicians perform. This perspective also makes it possible to illuminate how the crime scene technicians’ professionalization – a professionalization from the outside – affects both their future crime scene work and their facilitations.     

Backing Away From Equality

Abstract

In his early work in political philosophy, Amartya Sen advanced an interesting and provocative thesis – the egalitarian thesis. This is the claim that every conception of social justice that has received support in recent times is egalitarian. This paper argues that Sen's account of capabilities and his more recent critique of transcendental justice have implications for the truth of the egalitarian thesis. It also discusses how the rejection of the egalitarian thesis bears on the larger, and more general, issue of the overall plausibility of egalitarian conceptions of social justice.     

Revisiting the role of distributive justice in Tyler’s legitimacy theory

Objectives

Tyler’s theory of legitimacy identified procedural justice and distributive justice as antecedents of legitimacy, but placed distributive justice in a relatively minor position compared with procedural justice. This has led to researchers paying less attention to distributive justice in the development of theory, despite consistent findings that distributive justice is important to a number of outcomes for criminal justice authorities. This report uses uncertainty management theory to revisit Tyler’s legitimacy model and gain a more nuanced understanding of distributive justice.

Methods

The proposed model is tested using a series of latent variable analyses conducted on a sample of 2169 adults and a factorial vignette design. The vignette design randomly manipulates outcome favorability and officer behavior during a hypothetical traffic stop. Multiple indicator multiple cause (MIMIC) models are then utilized to test the impact of these manipulations on perceptions of procedural justice and distributive justice. This is followed by a structural equation model that tests the relationships between procedural justice, distributive justice, and legitimacy.

Results

Officer behavior is a primary predictor of both procedural justice and distributive justice. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that distributive justice judgments are shaped by perceptions of procedural justice. Accordingly, distributive justice mediates the relationship between procedural justice and legitimacy.

Conclusions

Distributive justice should not be treated as a competing explanation for legitimacy evaluations, but as a concept that contextualizes why procedural justice is important.

     

Kim Pate

Abstract

This essay provides an overview of the life of Kim Pate, a Canadian activist who works with and on behalf of criminalized women and girls. Highlights of Kim's commendable personal, occupational, political and academic contributions and achievements in both Canada and abroad are presented. Featuring pivotal occupational achievements in Kim's life simultaneously offers a glimpse into the state of affairs in the past decade facing women in Canada's criminal justice system. This essay is based on interviews held with Kim, her colleagues and friends, and my personal acquaintance with her. It brings to life how Kim has and continues to challenge and progress the Canadian criminal justice system as an activist, and how her success is rooted in her extraordinary character as an individual.     

Defendants encountering victims in the courtroom: challenges and opportunities of allocution in capital trials for doing restorative justice

ABSTRACT

Allocution is when offenders plead for mercy and offer explanations in order to mitigate punishment. This paper explores the opportunities and challenges inherent in an attempt to do restorative justice through offender allocution in the sentencing phase of capital trials. The essential principles in theories of restorative justice are presented. Then the contexts of allocution in a courtroom and the statements an offender might make in a typical restorative encounter are clearly differentiated. Contributions from the relatively new field of interpersonal neurobiology illuminate the state of mind in which the audience for allocution in a courtroom may be at the time allocution is offered with implications for how allocution might be used, and prepared for. Finally, suggestions are offered for how the opportunity for allocution might be taken up restoratively during capital trials.     

(Re)configuring the criminal justice response to human trafficking: a complex-systems perspective

Abstract

The multidimensional complexities associated with the criminal justice response to human trafficking are well documented. The transient and subversive nature of human trafficking as organised crime and the large number of multidisciplinary role-players involved in coordinating cross jurisdictional efforts to prevent, investigate and prosecute such cases, contribute to this complex undertaking. Complex systems theory suggests that a complex social problem such as human trafficking cannot be approached by using a linear or simplified lens, and requires a holistic perspective on the complex interactions between actors, and emergent behaviour in both the criminal justice system and the human trafficking system that it seeks to combat. This paper explores the characteristics of complexity, and uses illustrations from the lived experiences of actors in South Africa’s efforts to combat human trafficking, in order to demonstrate how complex systems theory could be considered and integrated into the criminal justice response to human trafficking.     

Living on the Boundaries in America

Abstract

In this article I examine marginalized youths' ideas about the United States, the law, and police. My interpretive analysis is based upon in-depth, unstructured interviews with juvenile parolees living in poverty in a large southwestern city. In general, these parolees could be described as uneducated, unemployed, non-white, youth gang members. Through an examination of the youths' narratives and stories about America and its legal authorities, I attempt to illustrate how their ideas can be understood as evolving from their structurally based interactions. I present the general themes of the marginalized youths' legal and political consciousness and attempt to show how this consciousness flows from their hostile interactions with legal and conventional authorities. Ultimately, I suggest that the contrast between the youths' social justice ideals and the reality of their lives on the margins influences how they think about America, law, and the police.     

‘Fat cat’ lawyers and ‘illegal’ migrants: the impact of intersecting hostilities and toxic narratives on access to justice

ABSTRACT

This article examines how three spheres of hostility intersect to prevent effective access to justice for those living with insecure immigration status. The neoliberal governance model, the barren justice landscape and the hostile environment are supported by the cynical construction of the ‘fat cat’ lawyer and the toxic ‘folk devil’ narrative of the ‘bogus’ asylum seeker. To the extent that the judiciary have frustrated the more obvious, ideologically driven, attempts to restrict access to justice for migrants, the austerity predicated measures pursuant to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) have completely altered the legal landscape. The analysis is informed by the findings of the ‘Legal advice and support for persons with insecure status’ project (hereafter LAPIS) in Nottingham which explores the challenges faced by service providers and the lived experiences of those with insecurity of status. It is clear that access to justice is a passport to the realisation of other rights, yet participants struggled to access a remedy because legal advice is too often out of reach.     

Revisionist history,visionary criminology,and needs-based justice

Although there may be some value in debating the question of whatever happened to radical criminology, I believe that it is more productive to think in terms of radical and/or critical continuities in pedagogy, research, and practice that have survived time and can be linked to current efforts in visionary criminology and transformative justice. Examining changes in the study of crime and justice from such a perspective, it can be argued that the antiestablishment criminologies of the year 2003 are not any more marginal, and in fact may be less marginal today than when radical criminology first burst onto the scene in the early 1970s.     

Extreme cases and the criminal justice system: responses to a traumatic sexual assault in India

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses criminal justice responses that came on the heels of a traumatic sexual assault in public space in India. The incident referred to as “Nirbhaya,” drew attention to the nation as well as the world the violence against women who on the one hand find themselves in public spaces designed for all denizens in this globalised world, yet, subject to sexploitation and devoid of safeguards and equal protection. In this paper we catalogue modifications to Indian criminal justice as a result of the Nirbhaya case to illustrate how extreme events help drive changes to the system in a large democracy, yet an economically developing one. More specifically, we address changes that have been incorporated in criminal laws, police procedures, and crime prevention efforts, as well as assess the degree to which these efforts have been effective.     

Personal loyalty to superiors in criminal justice agencies

Public workers in general, and criminal justice workers in particular, have a problem understanding the concept of loyalty at the workplace—to what, to whom, and at what price. Despite the fact that rules and regulations almost never mention loyalty to superiors, this unexamined practice has been sacrosanct regardless of how unworthy, inefficient, or immoral these superiors may be. Furthermore, the obligation of loyalty to persons rather than principles can encourage corruption, promote mediocrity, and demoralize the workers. Ironically, if both workers and superiors were loyal to departmental values, they would, by natural association, be loyal to one another. In criminal justice agencies the selection of loyalty objects can be as intriguing as the fear of being accused of disloyalty is real. This article discusses the arguments for and against personal loyalty to superiors, the risks to public service inherent in such relationships, and the organizational dangers involved in such pacts. As an alternative to personal loyalty to superiors, this article proposes a professional model based on organizational identification and individual accountability in which dutiful supervision is strengthened while superiors are appreciated as philosopher kings, role models, and mentors.     

Self‐control,peer relations,and delinquency

This paper addresses gender-specific treatment in juvenile justice processing, an important topic in view of new funding opportunities to develop female-specific programs. This topic is controversial and includes many unresolved issues. To provide context, we relate this study to lessons from the initiative to address disproportionate minority confinement: that it is impossible to understand confinement without understanding the process by which youths are confined, that structural and demographic traits facilitate the process, and that benevolent interventions can have unintended negative consequences. We present empirical findings that juvenile justice cases are “gendered,” but that court treatment of those cases shows more gender similarities than differences. In contrast, interviews with officials suggest large gender gaps in opportunities for services, and indicate some gender biases. Bias and disparity also are themes among delinquent and “at-risk” girls who participated in focus groups; in addition, girls expressed preferences for treatment comparable to that given to boys. Finally, we evaluate what has been advocated as female-specific programming and recommend how best to proceed.     

Domestic Violence Victims' Behavior in Favor of Prosecution

Abstract

This article examines how economic, emotional and social-power related factors affect victims' behavior in favor of prosecution during police investigations. Data drawn from police records and police narrative reports indicated that mutual charge, dual arrest, the severity of assaults and the severity of injuries suffered by victims negatively affected the victims' behavior in favor of prosecution. These findings suggest that the norm of unequal relationships between men and women combined with an indiscriminate use of mutual charge and dual arrest without considering the defensive or offensive nature of violent acts can reduce trust in the criminal justice system among women victims of domestic violence and decrease the victims' interest in pursuing prosecution.     

From papyrus to cyber: how technology has directed law enforcement policy and practice

Abstract

Cyber technology, both explicitly and implicitly, impacts every facet of local, state, national and international criminal justice operations. Unfortunately, technological changes, including cyber technologies, are rarely well thought out and may have unintended negative consequences. Additionally technology, and particularly cyber technology, evolves at a much faster pace than our understanding of the ethics, laws and policies involved. Consequently, citizens, criminals and justice professionals often rely on technology without the benefit of legal protections or explicit agency policy. This paper will examine how technology, both historically (non cyber) and contemporarily (cyber), has positively and negatively affected one aspect of the Criminal Justice enterprise – law enforcement.     

Transparency in 21st century fisheries management: Options for public participation to enhance conservation and management of international fish stocks

Abstract

Effective implementation of international environmental and natural resource conservation agreements depends not only upon the cooperation of contracting parties, but also upon the ability of the agreement to win the continuing support and input of non‐governmental stakeholders. This view, accepted and advocated by nations in the 1992 Rio Declaration, Agenda 21, and the recent Aarhus Convention on Public Participation, is now being incorporated into modern regional fisheries management organizations. These and earlier fisheries organizations can benefit from an awareness of how other multilateral agreements that adhere to the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 tenets have enhanced sustainable development through their provisions for transparency and public participation. This article surveys how these regimes have implemented the principles of access to information, access to decision‐making and access to justice, and makes corresponding recommendations to assist fisheries management organizations in achieving their goals.     

Justice in relationships: Calgary community conferencing as a demonstration project

Contemporary and alternative justice paradigms lead to definitions of wrongdoing as "lawbreaking" and "harm to social relationships" respectively. The retributive model within the contemporary justice paradigm results in strategies to accomplish justice that focus almost exclusively on the wrongdoer. In contrast, the restorative model within the alternative justice paradigm yields justice practices that focus on the relationships among all individuals harmed by the wrongdoing. Calgary Community Conferencing is an example of a restorative approach to wrongdoing. The relational emphasis of this program is operationalized through its organizational location, intended outcomes, and program activities. The challenges faced by Calgary Community Conferencing provide other agencies with ideas about dilemmas they might encounter in attempting to develop restorative justice programs.