Effect of time and relationships on victim–offender dialogue completion in felony cases

Victim–offender dialogues (VODs) often take place in organizational contexts, the stakeholders of which may very well be interested in measures of program effectiveness such as completion rates. When reported, completion rates typically ranged from 40 to 60%. At the time of this study, Ohio’s VOD program was completing just 25% of initiated cases and program stakeholders were unsure as to the cause(s). An archived data analysis was performed on a sample (n?=?212) of the Office of Victim Services (OVS) completed and will-not-proceed files. One hypothesis and two research questions make use of archived data to explore this felony VOD context. The amount of time between the date the crime occurred and the date on which the dialogue file was initiated was not a significant predictor of dialogue completion. However, both victim-offender’s pre-crime relationship and dialogue file initiator were found to significantly impact dialogue completion rates. These results are considered in light of social exchange and uncertainty reduction theories.     

Frenemies: restorative justice and customary mechanisms of justice

More often than not, restorative justice is said to take roots in Indigenous practices. In fact, Indigenous and other traditional mechanisms of justice are often described as examples of restorative justice practices. In New Zealand, the government equates the Mãori approach to doing justice with family group conferences (FGC); a restorative justice mechanism which it claims embodies Mãori values and preferences. This article contends, however, that the type of ‘justice’ embodied in customary mechanisms, has often been taken out of context, and rendered universal and ahistorical through its representation as restorative justice mechanisms. Using fieldwork evidence, an analytical comparison between principles of restorative practices, New Zealand’s FGCs and the Mãori approach to justice was conducted. It concludes that this tendency to equate restorative justice with Indigenous approaches to law and justice is harmful and dangerous for it risks rendering the scholarship homogenizing and universalizing restorative justice, to the detriment of local preferences and practices.     

Restorative justice: the indigenous justice system

Dramatically different beliefs about justice will produce dramatically different methods for achieving justice. The beliefs underlying the traditional Indigenous restorative justice systems, systems that dramatically differ from the European-based system practiced in the USA are presented. The discussion highlights the legacy of colonialism for tribal communities and the resilience and creative resistance that have continued to characterize the spirit and ingenuity of Indigenous peoples.     

Meeting the enemy: American exceptionalism and international law

Howard Zinn has been classified in a number of ways for his many social contributions. However, despite the breadth of his work, he has never been considered a criminologist. It is likely that this is the result of the inaccurate perceptions many Americans have about crime being a predominantly street‐level social problem. Zinn maintains that the social harms caused by those in positions of political and economic power are in fact crimes against humanity that are far more destructive and violent than the actions our legal system has historically deemed criminal. He also points to the ways our criminal justice system is unjust and ineffective, and has demonstrated how social inequality ensures that the disadvantaged will be further subordinated by the criminal justice system. Zinn’s critical contributions about the most significant sources of social harm, the unjust nature of the American justice system, and the influence of social inequality offer an unorthodox criminological perspective that deserves special consideration. His unconventional criminology calls for increasing social justice by means of political dissent, social resistance, and civil disobedience.     

The death penalty loses its mind: an interview with Professor James Acker

In April 2009 the American Law Institute (ALI) made the decision to withdraw its support for the a section of the Model Penal Code that had been instrumental in shaping contemporary death penalty legislation. The Institute had created the modern legal and criminal justice administration framework for capital punishment as part of its Model Penal Code in 1962. Professor James Acker, one of the leading scholars on the death penalty in the United States, speaks to the import of this decision while providing some historical context for ALI’s involvement in the matter initially.     

The effect of transfer mechanism from juvenile court on conviction on a target offense in criminal court

The question of whether juvenile offenders should be handled in criminal court has been addressed by a number of studies. However, few have examined the effectiveness of the type of transfer mechanism and how it relates to protecting the public. Whether the mechanism used to transfer juvenile offenders to criminal court has any effect on the likelihood of being convicted of a target offense criminal court is examined here. It was found that the juveniles sampled in this study had a greater chance of being convicted on their target offense in criminal court if they were sent there via judicial waiver than if they were excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction by statute.     

What restorative justice might learn from administrative theory

Two administrative ideal‐types related to competing forms of justice: retributive and restorative include ontological and epistemological foundations and associated organizational theory. The alternate understandings are coherently linked with the principles of justice informing retributive and restorative practices. Retributive justice is linked to formal organization based on instrumental rationality and individualist ontology, while restorative justice is linked to substantive organization based on ethical reasoning and relational ontology. Once constructed, ideal‐types can be used both to assess actual conditions on key characteristics as well as to make recommendations for organizational design. Therefore, conclusions are drawn about the importance of matching context to purpose, pointing toward further empirical research that will inform system design for restorative justice practices.     

Student conduct,restorative justice,and student development: findings from the STARR project: a student accountability and restorative research project

The STudent Accountability and Restorative Research (STARR) Project is a multi-campus study of college student disciplinary practices in the USA, comparing traditional conduct hearings that use restorative justice practices alongside traditional college student misconduct hearings. A coherent set of learning goals in college student conduct administration and a robust data-set capable of measuring student learning across different types of disciplinary practice, in particular, comparing traditional ‘model code’ practice with emerging restorative justice processes are examined. Integrating several student development theories, we identify six student development goals: just community/self-authorship, active accountability, interpersonal competence, social ties to institution, procedural fairness, and closure. The STARR Project includes data from 18 college and university campuses across the USA. We analyzed 659 student conduct cases based on surveys of student offenders, conduct officers, and other participants in the conduct processes. Using multiple regression to control for a variety of influences, we determined that the type of conduct process used is the single most influential factor in student learning. In addition, restorative justice practices were routinely found to have a greater impact on student learning than model code hearings.     

Exploring competency development: it’s the helping part

Restorative justice is an operating philosophy that, while used in other countries for many years, began being implemented in the United States in the early and mid 1990s. This paper takes a look at one part of the restorative justice philosophy, attempts to instill conceptual clarity, and examines one state’s process of implementing competency development programs and the effects that state has seen. In addition, five domains of competency development are explored as well as practical means of attaining the goals of each domain. The paper concludes with specific ways of measuring the outcomes of competency development, along with the progress that one commonwealth’s juvenile justice system has made.     

An identity‐based understanding of intergroup conflict

As conflict has at its basis a contest of ideas, values or resources between two or more groups, a comprehensive understanding of intergroup conflict must take into account the psychological processes that make groups and group behavior meaningful. Because individuals value and internalize identities relevant to their social, geographic, economic, historical and political positions, any devaluation, loss or imposed change to one of those identities is likely to be particularly threatening. The Social Identity Approach formulates an understanding of how these identity‐based motivations interact with social structures to predict intergroup conflict. Importantly, it also provides an explanation of how procedural justice mechanisms can be utilized to guide conflicting interests to common cooperative goals that can be accepted and pursued. By having representation and participation of relevant actors in the development of a shared identity, as is this case when nation states are formed or re‐created, threat is reduced, legitimacy built and the basis for positive intergroup relations created.