Balancing justice goals: restorative justice practitioners’ views

Despite the importance of facilitators, staff, and volunteers to restorative justice programs, we know very little about what they think about the goals of restorative justice. This paper fills that gap by reporting the findings of a survey of restorative justice practitioners in Nova Scotia, Canada. Participants rated the importance of 29 justice-related goals such as punishment and accountability. The results show how respondents distinguish between, prioritize, and balance competing justice goals. A factor analysis shows how goals cluster together revealing more depth about how practitioners understand goals, such as accountability, that have different meanings depending on the context. The findings are particularly interesting because the restorative justice program in Nova Scotia is deeply embedded in the criminal justice system. The findings speak to concerns about whether programs rooted in the mainstream system risk being diluted by dominant criminal justice system discourses. I conclude that restorative justice practitioners can prioritize the values of restorative justice in a program that is deeply rooted in the mainstream criminal justice system.     

Executive impunity and parallel justice? The United Kingdom debate on secret inquests and inquiries

At the beginning of 2008, the United Kingdom Government rolled into the Counter-Terrorism Bill some controversial proposals to reform coronial inquest processes, namely clauses that would provide for "secret inquests". The provisions were heavily criticised both inside and outside Parliament, and took a rocky passage through both the House of Commons and the House of Lords before eventually being abandoned by the government. In 2009 the government again tried to introduce "secret inquests" with the Coroners and Justice Bill, instead ultimately succeeding in establishing what critics have termed a "parallel" system of justice through provisions around "secret inquiries". This move has been seen as subverting the principles of transparency and open justice in the investigation of contentious deaths. This article examines the government's efforts to introduce "secret inquests" and thereafter "secret inquiries" in the context of the United Kingdom's coronial law and purpose, human rights obligations and the ongoing issues around sensitive intelligence, and examines the clash of laws that gave rise to the controversial proposals.     

Violence or justice? Gender-specific structures and strategies in early modern Europe

This article aims at getting a deeper understanding of gender-specific justification of violence in early modern legal discourse and practice. The analysis focuses on structures and strategies concerning women's supposed misconduct, disobedience and sexually suspicious acts, and violence related to this. The legal cases referred to originate from the secular lower courts' proceedings of the cities Stockholm and Munich in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

In addition to acts perceived as crimes, such as rape, the term violence refers to those not necessarily qualified as wrong, such as domestic castigation. Furthermore, in this study, the subject violence also applies to discriminatory legal structures and customs. The core questions therefore are: To what extent were disciplinary and penal methods as well as other acts upon a woman's body understood as just and legitimate, to what extent and in what circumstances were they seen as violent and wrongful, and how did this reflect the contemporary gender roles?     

Why do evaluation researchers in crime and justice choose non-experimental methods?

Despite the general theoretical support for the value and use of randomized controlled experiments in determining ‘what works’ in criminal justice interventions, they are infrequently used in practice. Reasons often given for their rare use include that experiments present practical difficulties and ethical challenges or tend to over-simplify complex social processes. However, there may be other reasons why experiments are not chosen when studying criminal justice-related programs. This study reports the findings of a survey of criminal justice evaluation researchers as to their methodological choices for research studies they were involved in. The results suggest that traditional objections to experiments may not be as salient as initially believed and that funding agency pressure as well as academic mentorship may have important influences on the use of randomized controlled designs.In August 2005, Dr. Lum’s affiliation will change to George Mason University.     

Procedural justice and the judge–probationer relationship in a co-occurring disorders court

Although a considerable amount of research has been conducted on treatment-based courts, there is little quantitative evidence that describes the relationship between the judge and the probationer. The present study examines perceptions of the judge–probationer relationship (JPR), procedural justice, and outcome satisfaction within a co-occurring disorders court (CODC) in Orange County, California. Based on interview and survey data from a sample of probationers within the CODC (n = 24), this article argues that perceptions of procedural justice are linked to perceptions of relationship quality between the judge and probationer. Analysis of the data found that probationers in the CODC have very positive views of their relationships with the judge, and elements of relationship quality are significantly linked with perceptions of procedural justice. Procedural justice is also a predictor of satisfaction with outcome in this sample. The results show promise that procedural justice and the quality of the judge–probationer relationship can positively affect probationers with co-occurring disorders in specialty courts.     

Is restorative justice for sexual crime compatible with various criminal justice systems?

In addition to the more conventional approaches of the criminal justice system, this article suggests that there is a need for restorative justice as another method of addressing sexual crime. In support of this view, the present article explores the possibility of a hybrid justice system based on a complementary relationship between restorative justice and the criminal justice system. An analysis of the limits of the criminal justice system and the need for restorative justice in the contentious area of sexual crime will be followed by a detailed examination of key justice considerations when trying to marry both criminal justice and restorative justice perspectives. Such considerations include: the meaning of justice; legislation; sentencing principles; due process; victims’ rights; and the location of restorative justice within/alongside/outside the criminal justice system. The aim of this article is to determine whether it is possible to reconcile two seemingly juxtaposed methods of justice delivery in the context of sexual crime in order to create a hybrid system of justice that best protects and responds to the rights and needs of victims and offenders.     

Police officers’ perceptions of organizational justice and their trust in the public

Research in organizational psychology has consistently demonstrated that employee perceptions of organizational justice have significant effects on employee attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors. Similar studies utilizing the organizational justice model in policing have also noted these effects, including the relationship of justice perceptions with officer attitudes toward the public. Recent theoretical developments in policing contend that the association between internal perceptions of justice and external attitudes may be the result of organizational and supervisory practices that ‘trickle-down’ into the police-community relationship. This paper explores this association by assessing the effects of officer perceptions of organizational justice on officer trust in the public. A sample of patrol division police officers were surveyed using measures taken from the organizational justice literature and Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman’s model of organizational trust. Results show a strong relationship between perceptions of organizational justice and trust in the public even when other relevant predictors are controlled.     

Legal professionals’ knowledge and experience of autistic adults in the family justice system

Abstract

Access to justice is a key theme in the family justice system, especially for those with particular vulnerabilities. Autism, a development condition characterised by difficulties in social communication and interaction, and the presence of rigid, repetitive behaviours, presents particular challenges in this area. This paper reports the findings of a mixed-methods study with legal professionals working in the family justice system, asking about their knowledge of autism, their perceived self-efficacy when working with autistic clients, and their experience of cases involving autistic litigants. The study reports high levels of knowledge, but low levels of confidence, by legal professionals (N = 204), and addresses the experiences of particular cases in follow-up discussions (N = 10). The paper concludes by making a series of recommendations for legal professionals to assist autistic people to engage fully in family court proceedings.     

Elusive justice: tribal police officers’ perception of justice in an American Indian community

This paper explores justice-related perceptions among tribal police officers providing service within a southeastern Indian Reservation in the United States. Interviews with 27 tribal police officers were conducted to understand the manner of the administration of tribal justice. Almost half of the participants interviewed felt that their tribal justice system was dysfunctional due to inter-tribal politics, federal government restrictions, and lenient tribal judges. Additionally, tribal police officers also described the failure of the federal government in prosecuting felony crimes on the reservation. As a result, they believed that both the tribal and federal criminal justice systems did not adequately address crime on the reservation.     

The politics of race and juvenile justice: The “due process revolution” and the conservative reaction

Through the prism of race, this article analyzes the social structural and political context of juvenile justice law reforms over the past half century. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Supreme Court imposed national legal and equality norms on recalcitrant southern states that still adhered to a segregated Jim Crow legal regime, and these norms provided the impetus for the Supreme Court's juvenile court “due process” decisions in the 1960s. The article then analyzes sociological, criminological, racial factors, media coverage, and political dynamics of the 1970s and 1980s that contributed to the “get tough” legislative reformulation of juvenile justice policies in the 1990s. During this period, conservative Republican politicians pursued a “southern strategy,” used crime as a code word for race for electoral advantage, and advocated “get tough” policies, which led to punitive changes in juvenile justice laws and practices and have had a disproportionate impact on racial minorities.     

Wellbeing,occupational justice and police practice: an ‘affirming environment’?

This paper examines wellbeing and occupational justice within the police profession. The research presented is based on a preliminary study utilising a qualitative methodology in which 14 in-depth interviews were conducted with rank and file police officers in one state of Australia. The data-set reveals that there are many positive aspects to being a police officer, contrary to the ‘dysfunction’ research that exists concerning the police in which corruption and poor performance prevails. The data analysis supports the notion that the practice of the police can be understood through a framework of wellbeing, occupational justice, and positive psychology. Whilst the research yields strong positive aspects in the work police officers engage in, as well as in their working environment, there are challenges within the profession, namely dealing with traumatic events that can hinder wellbeing and occupational justice. This study offers evidence to reflect on current policies and practices in terms of police recruitment, education and training. The study also offers evidence for improving staff retention by building on the principles of wellbeing and occupational justice within police practice.     

Restorative justice and probation decisions – an analysis of intentional assault cases in China

The restorative justice model focuses on amending offender-victim relations. Compared to Western countries, China's criminal justice policy has relied on both formal and informal mechanisms in dealing with criminal offending. Recently a victim-offender reconciliation (VOR) program has been codified in China to provide incentives for offenders and victims to resolve their disputes through court-guided mediation sessions. Using restorative justice as an interpretive framework and drawing upon 1000 minor intentional assault cases, this study examines the impact of core VOR concepts on probation decisions. Our analysis suggests that offender compensation and attitude were significantly related to the likelihood of receiving probation, and the defense attorney played an unexpected yet impactful role in shaping judges’ probation decisions. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

People’s justice for everyone

Both William Dean Howells and Edward Bellamy imagine brotherhood as the basis for new social orders in response to the trauma of the Civil War. Responding to the way in which the Civil War had pitted “brother against brother” in a “house divided,” Howells and Bellamy differently seek to reconstitute the American national family through revisioning brotherhood as universal, just, and equitable. William Dean Howells’s 1890 Howells WD (1890) A hazard of new fortunes New York Signet Classics 1965  [Google Scholar] A Hazard of New Fortunes illustrates the difficulties of aligning men in brotherhood following the Civil War and amidst the economic upheaval of the last decades of the 19th century. Bellamy’s 1888 Bellamy E (1888) Looking Backward, 2000‐1887 (Cecilia Tichi, Ed.) New York Penguin Books 1985  [Google Scholar] Looking Backward and Howells’s Altrurian romances (A Traveller from Altruria [1894 Howells WD (1894) A traveler from Altruria In E. J. Cady, R. Gottesman, &; Da. J. Nordloh (Eds.), The Altrurian romances (pp. 5–179) Bloomington Indiana University Press 1968  [Google Scholar]], “Letters of an Altrurian Traveller, I‐V” [1893 Howells WD (1893‐1894) Letters of an Altrurian traveller, I‐V In Edwin J. Cady, Ronald Gottesman, and David J. Nordloh (Eds.) The Altrurian romances (pp. 181–263) Bloomington Indiana University Press 1968  [Google Scholar]‐94] and Through the Eye of the Needle [1907 Howells WD (1907) Through the eye of the needle. 1907 In Edwin J. Cady, Ronald Gottesman, and David J. Nordloh (Eds.), The Altrurian romances (pp. 265–442) Bloomington Indiana University Press 1968  [Google Scholar]]) demonstrate brotherhood’s importance to new visions of community. Brotherhood’s promise for remaking the nation gives rise to the Nationalist movement, which emerged to make real Bellamy’s vision of the future. Brotherhood is a powerful organizing principle for utopian endeavor in post‐Civil War America, despite the limitations coincident with brotherhood, such as the difficulty of imagining brotherhood across race and gender lines.     

Aboriginal youth with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder and enmeshment in the Australian justice system: can an intercultural form of restorative justice make a difference?

Aboriginal youth with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) are overrepresented in the justice system. FASD results from prenatal alcohol exposure, and may lead to cognitive, social and behavioural difficulties that increase susceptibility to contact with the justice system. This paper explores the potential contribution of restorative justice in creating diversionary options for Aboriginal youth with FASD, and related cognitive impairments, to prevent enmeshment in the justice system. The lesson from work in Australia and New Zealand is that restorative justice and Indigenous justice are different, but not irreconcilable, projects. We suggest that there is the potential for creating rich intercultural engagement spaces ‘in between’ restorative practices and Indigenous processes: provided that restorative justice – as an essentially Eurocentric paradigm of the Global North – does not attempt to colonise Indigenous justice. An appropriate model would have Aboriginal people engaged in the planning and management of diversionary options, with greater focus on diversion into place-based, Aboriginal owned and managed services. Restorative justice needs to engage with the historical demands of Indigenous peoples for their land and their way of life; though constantly imperilled by forces of neo-liberalism and colonialism, Indigenous peoples remain resilient and provide a vision of an alternative to Euro-modernity.     

Market-based mechanism and ‘climate justice’: reframing the debate for a way forward

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - The Paris Agreement on climate change recognizes, reluctantly albeit, the importance of ‘climate justice’ in its...