Restorative Justice, Shame and Forgiveness

Restorative conferencing is a new style of criminal justice intervention which is being increasingly used in Britain, especially as a method of delivering police cautions to youth offenders.Is is currently the subject of a lively debate, focusing on its effectiveness as a method of crime reduction, its benefits tovictims, its feasibility in modern society, its effect upon procedural rights of arrestees, and the danger of it becoming a degradation ceremony. This paper seeks to extend the debate to include less obvious, but equally important, issues. The paper focuses on the processes of reintegrative shaming which, inspired by the work of John Braithwaite, are at the core of restorative conferencing. It places these processes in broader historical and cultural contexts, such as the re-emergence ofshame sanctions in the USA, the attack on the notion ofshame launched by cultural radicals, and the changes which have occurred historically in our emotional response to offenders.Three sets of questions emerge: What is the political –as distinct from penal – meaning of the practice of shaming offenders? How does the practice affect the progressive cultural aim of fuller realization of the individual? At what point doesforgiveness become less of a virtue, more of a vice?     

Restorative Justice in India

‘Restorative Justice’ reflects a crimino-victim balanced justice system where equal justice to offenders and victims is ensured. There are four potent features of Restorative Justice: repair, restore, reconcile, and reintegrate the offenders and victims to each other and to their shared environments and communities. There are many examples within Indian criminological literature that thoroughly explain the practice of restorative justice in India. The kings who ruled in various parts of the country had practiced restorative justice in a well thought out and traditional manner. Much of Gandhian philosophy and practice is based on restorative justice principles including the participatory practices of fairness and equality. Though there is a limited amount of literature on the present restorative justice practices available in India, this paper attempts to explain restorative justice practices across the continent from the view point of society and legal provision.     

Ambivalent Sovereigns and Restorative Justice: Exploring Conditions of Possibility and Impossibility for Restorative Justice in a Post-communicative Age

This contribution hopes to be able to contribute to answering the question: whither restorative justice? The restorative justice (RJ) movement has arrived at an existential crossroads. In this contribution an attempt is made to analyse how some of the origins of the RJ movement could be located in the emergence and crystallization of a new form of life (“control society”) in the wake of the Second World War. At the heart of this form of life one might be able to discern, on the one hand, a desire for and will to radical sovereignty, and, on the other, a resulting awareness of ambivalence. Whilst these aspects of post-war life have formed the backdrop of developments in RJ, and have therefore formed part of its conditions of possibility, one might now wonder if, in a post-communicative age such as ours, those very aspects have now become part of its conditions of impossibility. The argument explored in this contribution however holds that elements in the aforementioned form of life also hold potential for the re-thinking of restorative justice theory and practice.     

Revisiting Informal Justice: Restorative Justice and Democratic Professionalism

Restorative justice is a form of informal justice growing rapidly among criminal justice practitioners. It decenters the focus of criminal justice from the offender breaking a law of the state to the harm caused the victim and community. Resolution is said to come from offenders taking responsibility and making amends for the harm done and from communities supporting the victim and providing offenders with opportunities and skills to reintegrate as contributing members.
Restorative justice theory largely ignores the role of professionals in the criminal justice process, and yet professionals have played a dominant part in initiating many restorative justice programs. Several theoretical traditions recognize professionals as being important intermediaries between citizens and the state. The theory of democratic professionalism argues that professionals can play crucial roles in increasing and improving democratic participation in public affairs. This article examines two functioning restorative justice programs to flesh out what democratic professionalism might look like in operation—what tasks professionals perform and what citizen involvement means to the professionals. We argue that restorative justice cannot get along without professionals and that democratic professionalism may help restorative justice to avoid some of the problems associated with other approaches to informal justice by increasing true community participation but balancing it with concern for individuals' rights.     

Juvenile Justice in Oregon: Balanced and Restorative Justice in Action

The goals of Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) are to hold juvenile offenders meaningfully accountable, hear and empower crime victims and engage communities both as stakeholders who have been negatively impacted and as advocates to make things right for the crime victim, offender, and community. This article examines how several Oregon juvenile justice agencies have put BARJ into action over the last 25 years, highlighting specific examples of how several agencies have made this the philosophical underpinning of their work. An overview of the philosophical principles, values, and goals that drive this approach is also discussed.     

Evaluating Restorative Justice Programs in Taiwan

This paper aims to evaluate four restorative justice programs in Taiwan: (1) a mediation system; (2) deferred prosecution and conditional suspended sentence; (3) a youth justice system; and (4) the Taiwan Restorative Justice Initiative. In this paper, models proposed in Marshall (Restorative justice: An overview. London: Home Office, 1999) and Braithwaite (British Journal of Criminology 42:563–577, 2002b) are used as criteria to evaluate the four programs. Based on governmental documents, official statistics, and the findings of previous empirical studies, this paper will examine whose needs and power is focused and what types of value are highlighted in those four programs. This paper finds that current restorative justice programs in Taiwan place greater emphasis on offenders than on other parties such as victims and communities. In addition, maximizing and emergent standards that Braithwaite identifies are implemented more in Taiwan’s restorative justice programs than constraining standards. This paper suggests that restorative justice practices in Taiwan need to be more concerned with victims’ needs and interests, and to strengthen constraining types of restorative justice values.     

Mediation and Restorative Justice in Belgium

In this article we present, discuss and try to evaluate initiatives which were recently introduced into the Belgian criminal justice system, aimed at the development of creative answers to crime that avoid the use of traditional prison sentences. We decided to focus this analysis on the practice of mediation as it is actually considered the most innovative approach to the crime problem. Mediation as a problem-solving intervention has to be considered in direct relation to the discussion of the purpose of the criminal justice system. By putting the emphasis on the dialogue between the victim and the offender, a common solution is worked out with the help of a mediator. In this way reparation, redress and sometimes even reconciliation become core values of the penal action.     

Paradigm Muddle: The Threat to Restorative Justice Posed by Its Merger with Community Justice

The restorative justice movement has great potential to reform the way society responds to crime and wrongdoing. One might logically assume that the greatest challenge to the new restorative justice paradigm is the traditional punitive criminal justice paradigm itself. A more immediate threat, however, is posed by merging community justice, another approach to reforming the justice system, with restorative justice. Community justice has superficial similarities to restorative justice but relies on the underlying authoritarian assumptions of the existing criminal justice system and on processes that exclude most of those individuals directly affected by the offense. This paper clarifies and contrasts the key elements of both the restorative justice and the community justice paradigms and explains the threat to restorative justice posed by combining and confusing the two.     

Persia to China: the Silk Road of Restorative Justice I

This paper to the 2016 Beijing meeting of the Asian Criminological Society is the first of two lectures on the theme of The Silk Road of Restorative Justice. The second is the annual lecture of the European Forum for Restorative Justice held jointly with the Asia-Pacific Forum for Restorative Justice in Milan (Braithwaite 2017). This first paper opens the idea of restorative justice as a way of thinking that flows back and forth along the Silk Road with a special focus on the development of relational, republican, and feminist thought in ancient and modern China and Persia. Both contemporary China and Iran are left today with quite a universal yet modest national policy of support for restorative justice. Some co-optation of restorative justice by the state and disengagement from it by many key justice professionals are evident in both China and Iran. The second paper argues more normatively for openness to hybridity along the Silk Road. It identifies virtues of being a republican-socialist-capitalist-feminist advocate of restorative justice in light of what we learn along the Silk Road. The unifying message of both papers is that excellence in restorative justice is nurtured by travelling many roads in search of helpful hybrids.

     

恢复性司法及其借鉴意义

恢复性司法与传统刑事司法模式存在着许多区别,其最主要特征在于恢复性,是一种通过恢复性程序实现恢复性后果的非正式犯罪处理方法,这种处理方法提供了一条以和平的方式、在当事人充分参与的基础上解决刑事冲突的新途径。恢复性司法已在西方诸多国家得到充分的发展,对我国的刑事司法实践同样也有着重要的借鉴意义。     

恢复性司法理念下社区矫正相关问题研究

2011年2月25日,十一届全国人大常委会第十九次会议审议通过了刑法修正案﹙八﹚,其中明确规定对判处管制、缓刑及裁定假释的罪犯依法进行社区矫正。由于我国的社区矫正起步较晚,经验不足,在实践中仍然会面临诸多问题。恢复性司法理念作为当今世界流行的司法观念对理顺我国社区矫正中刑法、刑事诉讼法与社区矫正相关规定之间的关系,解决社区矫正机构及人员配备上存在的不足以及对社区服刑人员进行监督管理等方面都具有十分重要的意义。     

Restorative Justice Issues Related to Research on Community Correction

2011年2月25日,十一届全国人大常委会第十九次会议审议通过了刑法修正案(八),其中明确规定对判处管制、缓刑及裁定假释的罪犯依法进行社区矫正.由于我国的社区矫正起步较晚,经验不足,在实践中仍然会面临诸多问题.恢复性司法理念作为当今世界流行的司法观念对理顺我国社区矫正中刑法、刑事诉讼法与社区矫正相关规定之间的关系,解决社区矫正机构及人员配备上存在的不足以及对社区服刑人员进行监督管理等方面都具有十分重要的意义.     

Regret,Reconciliation, and Restorative Justice: Introduction to a Special Issue of Social Justice Research

Social Justice Research -